WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2019
BOB’S
THOUGHTS
THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD — 5
NORTHEAST OREGON EXTRA
The Centerpiece Of The Holiday Meal
BOB BAUM
Rebecca’s
search
Editor’s note: Bob Baum grew up in
Union. He retired in February after 43
years, mostly as a sports writer, with The
Associated Press in Portland and Phoe-
nix, Arizona. He lives with his wife Leah
in Island City.
Forewarning: This column is special.
There is such a need for happy-ending
stories these days.
So let me tell you about Rebecca
She was born on July 29, 1986, at a
Portland hospital.
Her mother struggled with drug ad-
diction all her life, so Rebecca’s childhood
was pretty miserable.
She fi gures she moved perhaps
20 times as a child. She recalls being
evicted one Christmas Eve. For a time,
the family lived in a campground. The
father of her half-brother was abusive.
She left home for good at 14.
Rebecca had an older half-brother and
a younger one. All had different fathers.
Except Rebecca didn’t know who hers
was.
She knew one thing for sure, she was
very different from those around her.
And where did that curly hair come
from?
When she was 16, Rebecca and the
rest of her extended family moved to
Florida. The plan was for the many
addicts in the family to get off drugs. It
mostly didn’t work. Rebecca’s mom died
late last year of complications due to her
long drug history. She was 54.
At 19, Rebecca married Evan and the
couple and their beloved dogs settled in
to a house in Clearwater.
She had pretty much given up on fi nd-
ing her father. It seemed impossible. Her
mother told her of a man that might be
him. Rebecca met him once in a bar, and
he wanted nothing to do with her. Re-
becca was sure he wasn’t the right one.
She lives a busy life, working as a due
diligence specialist for an investment
fi rm while attending college full-time.
She’s on the brink of earning an associ-
ate’s degree in business and will transfer
to University of South Florida to pursue
her bachelor’s degree.
Last Christmas, Rebecca’s boss gave
her, as a gift, membership in Ancestry.
com. Maybe, just maybe, that would lead
her to her dad.
On May 21, I received an email. It
read, in part:
“From the DNA it appears you are
my dad. … I’ve wondered who my dad
was my whole life and it’s a question
I desperately need an answer to. …
Again, I am not looking for anything
from you but a possible relationship but
I will respect your decision either way.’’
As any reader probably has guessed
by now, I’m Rebecca’s dad.
Of course, I had no idea she existed.
Her mom didn’t remember me and,
sadly, I didn’t recognize her from photos
Rebecca sent me.
I do not have an Ancestry.com mem-
bership. But my oldest sister does. So do
several other relatives.
Rebecca reached out to some of them.
The most helpful responses came half-
way around the world from Lindsay, the
granddaughter of my oldest sister who
lives with her young family on Okina-
wa, where her husband is stationed.
Lindsay, who had been through this
sort of thing before with another family
member, helped Rebecca sort through
who all these people are. Advances
in DNA testing are astonishing.
Ancestry identifi ed my sister Janice
as Rebecca’s aunt. Others were her
cousins.
All signs pointed to me.
I knew nothing of this. A couple of
strange messages had been sent, one
to my wife Leah on Facebook, seeking
my email address. At fi rst, we fi gured
it was some scam and told her to go
away, something for which my wife
subsequently apologized repeatedly.
Then another sister showed up at my
doorstep to give me the news. My reac-
tion was, initially, shock.
But that was followed by such a happi-
ness for Rebecca to have finally found me.
I responded to her email and sent
my phone number. A long, exceedingly
pleasant, phone conversation followed, the
first of many.
I’m a bit ashamed I don’t remem-
ber Rebecca’s mom. Those were my
hedonistic years between a divorce and
my giving up drinking three decades
ago. But even though I feel badly about
Jarrad Henderson//Detroit Free Press-TNS
Sue Selasky’s roast turkey with sage pan gravy.
T OP T URKEY T ACTIC
time: 3 hours
By Susan Selasky
Detroit Free Press
Thanksgiving is a meal about comfort food,
and that’s a good thing.
Comfort food doesn’t always come easy, but
smart cooks know that a good game plan will
get them through the big meal.
If you haven’t begun planning your feast
for the holiday, fear not. We’re here to help.
After all, Thanksgiving is about giving and
sharing.
As the holiday approaches every year, we
get bombarded with turkey recipes, tips and
cooking suggestions from all sorts of sources,
but we believe in sticking to tried-and-true
techniques to help achieve our ultimate goal:
a deep honey-brown turkey with crisp skin
and meat that’s tender and juicy.
There are so many ways to cook a turkey.
You can roast, grill or fry it and cook it in a
bag, in a pan or on a rack. You can even take
it apart and roast it or cut the back out and
fl atten it (a process called spatchcock) so that
it cooks in half the time.
But in the Free Press Test Kitchen, we’re
creatures of habit. We wet or dry brine the
turkey or apply a seasoned butter under and
on the skin. Brining helps ensure that the
turkey stays moist. Using seasoned but-
ter means there’s no need to baste the bird.
When it’s time to cook, we roast or sometimes
grill, which frees up oven space.
ROAST TURKEY WITH SAGE
PAN GRAVY
Serves: 12 / Preparation time: 1 hour / Total
One (12- to 14-pound) turkey fresh
(or frozen and thawed)
3 tablespoons chopped fresh sage, divided
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1¼ teaspoons kosher salt, divided
½ teaspoon freshly ground
black pepper, divided
1 lemon, halved crosswise
6 garlic cloves, peeled
3 carrots, coarsely chopped
3 celery stalks, coarsely chopped
2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
1 bay leaf
3 cups no-salt-added or less-sodium,
fat-free chicken stock, divided
2 cups water
3 tablespoons white wine
3 tablespoons all-purpose fl our
Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
Remove giblets and neck from turkey; dis-
card liver. Reserve turkey neck and giblets. Pat
turkey dry with paper towels; trim and discard
excess fat. Starting at neck cavity, loosen the
skin with the breast using your fi ngers at fi rst.
Then gently slide a thin plastic spatula under
the skin, pushing it gently to loosen the skin
under the entire breast, legs and thighs.
Combine 2 tablespoons sage, oil, butter, 1
teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon black pepper.
Rub sage mixture under the loosened skin and
over breasts and drumsticks. Squeeze juice
from 1 lemon half over turkey; place remain-
ing lemon half in cavity. Tie legs together with
kitchen string. Place reserved giblets, neck,
garlic, carrots, celery, onion and bay leaf in the
bottom of a large roasting pan. Add 1 cup stock
and 2 cups water to pan. Place roasting rack in
pan. Arrange turkey, breast side up, on roasting
rack.
Bake turkey for 1 hour and 20 minutes,
rotating pan every 30 minutes. Increase oven
temperature to 425 degrees (do not remove
turkey from oven). Bake turkey an additional
30 minutes or until a thermometer inserted
into meaty part of thigh registers 160 to 165
degrees. Remove turkey from pan; place on a
cutting board. Let stand for 30 minutes. Carve
turkey.
Place a large zip-top plastic bag inside a
4-cup glass measure. Strain pan drippings
through a colander into bag; discard solids. Let
drippings stand 10 minutes. Seal bag; snip off
1 bottom corner of bag. Drain pan drippings
into a medium saucepan, stopping before fat
layer reaches the opening. Add remaining 1
tablespoon sage, remaining ¼ teaspoon salt,
remaining ¼ teaspoon black pepper, 1½ cups
chicken stock and wine to drippings in pan;
bring to a boil. Cook for 15 minutes or until re-
duced to 2½ cups. Combine fl our and remain-
ing ½ cup chicken stock in a small bowl, stirring
with a whisk until smooth. Stir fl our mixture
into stock mixture in pan; bring to a boil. Boil
1 minute or until slightly thick, stirring gravy
constantly. Serve gravy with turkey.
315 calories (26% from fat), 9 g fat (3 g saturat-
ed fat), 3 g carbohydrates, 52 g protein, 349 mg
sodium, 172 mg cholesterol, less than 1 g fi ber.
Simple soup can conjure memories
Brodo is the Italian word
for broth — o’s that roll
over their d like a mountain
stream over stones. Its
sound moves through the
mouth more like broth than
does our own word, one that
fades abruptly into fuzz, tasting
like fur next to satiny brodo. I am
not an advocate of cultural self-
loathing, but some words just don’t
fi t. Brodo does.
In certain Italian preparations,
brodo is allowed to take the main
stage, poured in its understated
elegance over simple pasta — a
few handmade tortellini or ravi-
oli — and that’s it. Letting broth
shine is a global culinary tradi-
tion. Think pho, dashi, borscht,
sweet-and-sour, avgolémono, cocky
leeky, consommé, or the proverbial
chicken soup, dishes that vary
widely in fl avor but all start pretty
bits, technique that relies on
diligence and time more than
expertise or expense, a humble
food fi t for kings.
I avoided making broth for a
SARAH WEST
long time because it seemed like
too much fuss for soup base.
simmer.
Something distant haunted
When I say broth — or stock,
me, though, in my dismissal of
or, especially, brodo — I’m not
homemade broth: a soup my
referring to anything you’ve ever
mother often made soon after
poured out of a can, salty bouil-
Thanksgiving that we would rel-
lon cubes dissolved in hot water,
ish for a week or so each year.
or concentrates dolloped into the
Once the carcass was cleaned
pot. On the road to true broth,
of sandwich meat, she trans-
there are no shortcuts. While there formed it into a tub of broth that
may be a place for these stand-ins lived in the fridge. For a quick
amidst our crowded lives, they
lunch or dinner, she warmed
aren’t brodo.
some on the stove, adding bits
When I speak of broth, it is of
of turkey, thin strips of Napa
that rich, impossibly simple liquid cabbage placed in the pot just
that enthralls our senses with
long enough to soften but not
the same charisma as a steak. It
fully cook, and a few dashes of
is peasant food in one of its most
soy sauce for seasoning. It was
EATER’S
DIGEST
Submitted photo
From left, Leah Baum, Rebecca and Rebecca’s dad.
those years I can’t regret them
because it led to this wonderful
young woman who seems so
strong, smart and driven.
Besides, as one of my favorite
sayings goes, “I have given up all
hope of having a better past.’’
Rebecca offered to pay for a
DNA test to prove I was the one. I
said there was no need. One look
at her and just a few minutes on
the phone convinced me. Besides,
the other DNA didn’t lie.
Last July, just before her
birthday, Rebecca and Evan came
for a visit. My daughter Brandi,
satisfying chew of the turkey, the
her husband and two young boys
light crunch of the cabbage, and
came,
too. else that went beyond
something
We
went
to Catherine
Creek
fl avor, beyond
feeling. I loved
State
Park
and
a
barbecue
on my
this soup more than the entire
deck.
The
big
event
was
a
“wel-
Thanksgiving feast, and since a
come-to-the-family’’
in the
turkey carcass only picnic
came around
once or twice
a year,
was a
backyard
of my
niece, it Joni.
delicacy
I looked
to.
My sisters
and forward
brother were
Food So can
set an
this
kind of hook
there.
were
assortment
of
in us. of
This
plain
turkey
soup
some
my was
many
other
relatives
not a live
gourmet
for me
who
around meal,
here. but
It was
a big
it
was
anchored
in
a
particular
success.
time and place.
Rebecca was a little over-
I grew up in the Midwest
whelmed but was gamely cheer-
where late November could al-
ful
throughout,
even Where
when some
ready
be quite cold.
a body
of
my
more
inquisitive
relatives
adjusting to its new reality
— to
peppered
her with
questions.
days shortening
and
trees (most
in a Mexican
of After
them dinner
deciduous)
stripped of
restaurant,
Rebecca
everything green and and
ice Evan
growing
from for the
edge of But
the Rebecca
lake — and
left
Florida.
need few
something
deeply
I might
text every
days and
talk on
comforting.
the
phone regularly. She really is
quite a young woman. We hope to
go to Florida for a visit in the next
year or so.
As I said, I felt so much joy for
Rebecca for fi nding her dad and,
hopefully, fi nding that he’s not
such a bad guy after all.
But now I fi nd that, while I’m
happy for her, I’m just as happy
for me.
See what I mean? Special.