I'm on my own this year.
I'm NOT doing a turkey in any way, shape, or form, which would condemn me to turkey leftovers for a month or more.
What I AM doing is Ning Mon Gai--Chinese lemon chicken. What Cantonese sweet-and-sour chicken was always meant to be. An ethereal delight that is too much of a pain in the ass to be in my regular culinary regimen.
I have special emotional connections with this recipe.
Back in the mid-1970s, **THE** most prestigious Chinese restaurant in New York City was Pearl's, in Manhattan. My mother was fond of the place, and I was blown away by the greatness of the food when I visited there.
My mother and I were delighted to see the precise recipe for Lemon Chicken that we'd enjoyed so much published in the food section of the New York Times in 1976. Alas, when I wrote to her, my mother had not saved the recipe (my parents did subscribe to the New York Times). Most fortunately, someone on my dorm corridor in my senior year at college subscribed to the Times, and he'd thrown out a ten-foot-high stack of back issues. I rummaged through the lot and was able to salvage the NYT recipe, which is identical to what I remember from Pearl's, and is what I to this day make as Chinese Lemon Chicken.
I have already posted this recipe to this group, so I won't repeat it.
But I WILL repeat it this Thanksgiving in my home, with fond memories, and I will give thanks for the extraordinary fortune of having recovered this recipe from the garbage at Holy Cross College in the spring of 1976.
A joyous Thanksgiving to you all,
-Paul W.
