Brokelyn

Our pick: Prime Meats for $16 a plate.

If you’re in the city this Thanksgiving and don’t feel like wrestling with a 20-pound bird (or haven’t wangled an invitation you’re excited about), keep in mind that plenty of restaurants will be in full swing. Sure there’s the River Café for the $125-a-head crowd and Dressler’s $90-a-plate feast, but we found seven places where you can get turkey (or possibly tofurkey) and fixins for under $25—booze not included. If you’ve heard of any deals we missed, please put them in the comments. And since working on Thursday is pretty much no fun, don’t forget to be extra thankful with the wait staff… Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by iStock.

It’s called Turkey Day for a reason, pilgrims, and this year you want an organic one. First of all, you know how much better they taste (it’s true). Second, it’s Thanksgiving, and it just seems right to eat a bird that saw sunlight and walked outside like they did in 1621, not pumped with hormones and antibiotics by someone not wearing flannel.

What exactly is an organic turkey? To settle the free-range vs. organic question, which wasn’t easy, here’s a helpful document explaining the USDA’s rules, which say that in addition to not being fed drugs, plastic pellets, hormones, manure, etc., livestock must be raised with “access to the outdoors, shade, shelter, exercise areas, fresh air and direct sunlight suitable to the species, its stage of production, the climate and the environment.” Michael Pollan says poultry farmers have all kinds of ways of getting around USDA regs, one reason why more people are opting for free-livin’ heritage turkeys, which can cost up to $14.99/pound. (Brooklyn Based has a list here.) For the purposes of our research, we kept it simple: called a whole bunch of markets and a few online vendors to get prices on a 13-pound organic bird, which serves eight to 10 people. Read the rest of this entry »