Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein, and this is the podcast cooking with Bruce and Mark,

and I'm Mark Scarborough. And together with Bruce, we have written 36 cookbooks are now finishing up the 37th. We'll be telling you about that in 2025. It's going to be published in July of 2025. We'll be telling you about that later. It's a very exciting book for us, a book that we have so badly wanted to write the sort of book even that we have so badly wanted to write for a long time. But more on that later. This is our. podcast about food and cooking. Our passions for 25 years now through tens of thousands of copywritten and original recipes. In this episode, we're going to be talking about Thanksgiving again. We started, um, a couple episodes ago, right? Wasn't that right? We taught

with drinks. What a serve. Yeah.

So. That's right. And now we're going to talk about the main event, the bird itself, and what to do about that bird leading up to the big holidays ahead of us. So let's get started.

Our one minute cooking tip. Keep your gravy warm without taking up valuable burner space on your stove during the holidays by using a thermos.

What? Oh. So you,

you take your hot gravy. off of the stove and pour it into a thermos. That way,

do I have, what if it's chunky? What if I use one of those press down thermoses? Does it vomit?

Okay. Let me reiterate. Okay. Okay. Let me restate that.

Yeah. The writer wants clarity.

You can't use a pump thermos. It has to be one of those old fashioned thermoses where you unscrew the

top.

Well, you. Then you have your choice. You could bring the thermos to the table and let people pour the gravy from the thermos.

Camping, then.

Or, at the last minute, you could then pour it from the thermos into a gravy boat. But either way, you have a free burner now. Rather than keeping a little pan on warm, you probably need those burners.

Okay, so how do you get the gravy stink out of your thermos?

Oh, now you're asking for lots of information. I do! I want to know more! Well, I would Probably try a little baking soda and let it soak a little vinegar. Maybe that, okay, here's the thing that becomes your gravy thermos. You can have a coffee thermos and you have a gravy thermos.

Are you from the South that you would have a gravy thermos? Um, okay. Uh, that's, that's the wildest one minute cooking tip I've ever heard. I don't write these. Bruce, the chef in our duo writes them and he's

very clever.

And. If he says so himself Yeah, so I don't see these before we record these podcasts and they always take me by surprise But this would particularly a gravy thermos. Okay, I'm just Seeing grandma plop it out of the thermos under a plate. I've got a living vision of what this looks like Okay, before we get on to the turkey tips for the holidays. I want to say that we have a newsletter It comes out maybe two times a month sometimes once a month two times a month You can Find it or subscribe to it by going to our website, cooking with Bruce and mark. com or just simply Bruce and mark. com. There's a signup form toward the bottom of the landing page for the website. Uh, you can sign up there. And again, I've, I say all the time, I don't capture your email. I don't even see it. And I don't let the provider MailChimp capture it. So your email cannot be captured and sold to other lists. And you can always. unsubscribe at any time. That newsletter is sometimes connected to this podcast. We did a newsletter recently about tree syrups and where to get them because we talked about them on the podcast. And we'll have some coming up for the holidays. So you can check that out as well as this podcast. All right, let's get going on our big turkey tips. for the holidays.

Making a turkey freaks a lot of people out, and I don't really understand why people worry it's going to be too dry. People worry that it's not going to come out right. People practice making Thanksgiving dinners because they so, year after year after year. Isn't Thanksgiving itself practice for the next year?

Let me tell you my best Thanksgiving. Tip, if you're worried about cooking dinner for Thanksgiving, just make sure you have a dozen eggs in the house, and if everything goes south, you can always make scrambled eggs, and okay, so what, it's not traditional Thanksgiving, but you know what, you have a fallback safety measure with a dozen eggs in the house, and you make scrambled eggs or fried eggs, and everybody, I don't know, make sure you have some bacon too, and okay, you got bacon and eggs, and there you go, there's your Thanksgiving. Okay,

Mark is telling you that because we actually had to do that once and we'll get to that why that happened and it actually has to do with our first question about turkeys should you brine a turkey. Now let me say Does everybody even know what brining a turkey means, Mark?

Well, no, maybe not. Brining is working with the meat such that you induce osmosis with a salt solution. So why do you want to do this? Because by allowing salt to invade the cellular structure of the meat, you're actually pushing moisture. The salt is carried in water. You're actually pushing moisture into the meat itself, and you're making the meat more tasty because the salt is burying into the cellular structure, but you're also trapping moisture in there, and it helps not overcooking the bird you have brined it. Now, there are two, uh, two, uh, moments, two exceptions to this rule about brining. Terry, yeah, thanks. The chef helps the writer find the word. Two exceptions for not brining. So what's one of those? Two exceptions.

Okay, the first one is near and dear to my heart, it's what my grandmother always made, which is a kosher turkey.

Okay, and why don't you brine a kosher turkey?

To kosher a turkey is to salt it. That's part of it. And the way it's raised, the way it's killed, and all of that. But a key, key ingredient to koshering a turkey and making sure that it lives up to the laws of kashrut, it must be salted after it's killed. That is brining. So it is already a salt filled turkey, and if you add more salt, it is not going to be very good.

No, you can't brine this thing because, again, it is, as it were, pre salted from the kashrut process. And the other time you shouldn't brine a turkey is If, and now you have to look at the package your turkey comes in, if it says the turkey may contain up to a percent, sometimes that's 15%, sometimes it's 10%, a percent of a broth or a solution. Just look at the packaging and it'll tell you that. What that basically is, is a broth or water brine that has been injected in the meat. And that turkey essentially is pre brined. And in fact, we might even argue it's over brine.

Yeah, turkeys that are labeled sometimes even self basting, that's what they mean, they're self basting because the base has already been shoved into the meat. Right.

So if you have any of those kind of turkeys, either the ones that say contains up to X percent of a broth or a solution, or a kosher turkey, you don't want to brine it. But otherwise, we would recommend highly brining a turkey, particularly if you have bought an organic turkey, or if you are lucky enough to be serving a wild turkey. at your Thanksgiving table. If you have either of those, an organic or a wild turkey, or you find out your turkey wasn't injected with a broth or a solution, as it says on the packaging, then you probably should brine it for the best results. So how do you do that?

So the way you brine it is by making a salt solution. The volumes are a gallon of water.

Wait, let me just say, for anyone listening not in the U. S., we're using only volumes right here. So just be careful. This is volume talk.

A gallon of water to a cup of salt and a quarter cup of sugar. And you stir that up until it is dissolved. If you want to add spices, which some people do, they like to throw, you know, all spice and cloves, bay leaves and Pickling spices. I've even seen

people put a thinly sliced lemon in there.

If you do that, you must bring that mixture to a simmer, then let it cool back to room temperature. That way you're infusing all the natural oils from those spices.

Let me say one thing about this before we get, because there's more to this than just a gallon of water, a cup of salt, and a quarter cup of sugar. Let me say, uh, that salt should preferably be kosher salt, not table salt. You can use table salt. Kosher salt is better.

So you have all of that salt solution now and you might as well mix it right up in the largest stock pot or soup pot you have in your house. But before you do that, make sure your turkey is going to fit in that pot because there's nothing worse than doing the brine and then putting your turkey in and realizing only half the turkey fits. If that's the problem, you can go to the cooler method. And the cooler method is to do this all in a big cooler. Problem there is you got to make sure that cooler is meticulously clean and almost sterilized. It's going to have

to stay cold. And this is part of the problem. You have to figure out how to keep that cooler cold. Now, if you live as we do in New England, it's less of a problem because you can keep the cooler So you can leave it open for a long time outside and it gets cold and then you can basically leave it out on your back porch. Although where we live, the bears would be on it in about a half a second. But still, nonetheless, you got to figure out where to put this thing to keep these cold. And the reason you don't want to necessarily put ice water in the cooler is because the ice water will impede the osmosis process of brining.

Okay, so now you've got the turkey and you've got that brine solution in your giant pot. Mm hmm. What happens if your pot's so big now that the turkey's not even submerged? Then add more fresh water, but don't add more salt because it is better to be a little undersalted than a little over salted. Right. And if you over salt it, you end up with the problem that happened with us. Oh, I should say with me. Not with me. I didn't do anything. On that famed Thanksgiving where we served omelets. Because my own recipe in our own book, The Ultimate Cookbook, tells you how to do this, how to brine a turkey. And I follow my own recipe. I open the book and there's the instructions on the bottom of the right hand page about doing that. And I saw that the liquid didn't cover the turkey. So I made another brine and I poured it over. And I made another brine. I kept doing that. Oh, gosh. Well, that turkey was. Inedible. Oh, it tasted like the

Dead

Sea. And I said to him, It's our recipe! I had checked it. So he opened the book, and we get to the bottom of that right hand page, and he turned the page. And what does it say on the top of the left hand page? Add more water. Just fresh, plain water. Not more brine. even

read his own recipe that he himself had developed and that I had written for The Ultimate Cookbook. Hey, if you don't know The Ultimate Cookbook, just to be, uh, egregiously simple, self promoting. The Ultimate Cookbook is this book we wrote a while back. Oh, I don't even know how far back. It was

in 2006.

Yeah. And it's 900 recipes. And I think still to this day, Bruce claims it's the way he cooks for himself. It's this 900 page compendium. No photographs, I'll admit, because back in the day, you didn't photograph cookbooks necessarily. Think about Julia Child and her books. So, um, anyway, he didn't read his recipe. Well,

wait, wait, Bette Midler gave us a nice quote for the cover of that book. So let's, let's add that to that. They both gave us a lovely quote. So,

so, um, that's just egregious on the self promoting front, but okay. Anyway, um, you, so you get this turkey in this pod and then what you want to do is you want to cover it with water, fresh water from, uh, more than the brine as much as you need. And then you want to put it in the fridge and you want to brine it for 12 hours. But no. More than 24 hours. Here's why. Because the longer you brine it, the softer the meat will get. And you can reach this disgusting stage of pudding turkey. So you do not want pudding turkey under any circumstances. So my advice is 12 hours. You can do it up to 24. And let me just say what we're sitting here on brining a turkey. You can imagine that this works better with a smaller bird. And personally, in my personal opinion, uh, birds that are 12 to 14 pounds are about as big as they should be, maybe 15. Once you get above 15 and you get up to those 19 pound birds, 20 pound birds. Those birds to me don't cook evenly, the meat tends to be very tendon filled, the legs have super giant tendons in them, as do the thighs, they're just not to me as successful as smaller birds. If you need more turkey, uh, Make two turkeys. Don't get just a bigger bird. I

agree with Mark. Two

12 pound turkeys are better than one 20 pound

turkey. I would much rather have a 12 pound turkey any day. And if you're going for just a turkey breast, which in fact I roasted the other night because I wanted some turkey and it was just the two of us. It's hard to find turkey breasts. that are not pre brined, that was a problem. And in fact, it was funny because I roasted this turkey breast and we ate it and Mark's like, Wow, you really salted this. I said, I did nothing to it. I thawed it, I shoved it in a roasting pan and I put it in the oven. And that's how salty pre brined and injected turkeys can be. So really be careful about that.

Okay, so next we want to move on to talking about cooking turkey from frozen. I don't think a lot of people know this. that you can actually shove a frozen turkey in your oven and it will get done the same as a thawed turkey. But before we get to that point, I want to make a side point and take a little detour here and say that if for any reason you are free on the evening before Thanksgiving in the United States, so Wednesday evening, you should get yourself to the supermarket that evening. Because let me tell you, the turkeys will be on absurd. sale. They're

almost free. We wandered

into a large supermarket in a town about 20 minutes away from us a few years ago because we went up for pizza on the night before Thanksgiving. And so we wandered into the supermarket and the turkeys were like 79 cents a pound on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. So just go Go and grab yourself turkeys, and if you have a chest freezer, as we do, stock up. I think we bought three,

because

we threw them in the chest freezer in the basement. We bought

three 12 pound

turkeys. Yeah, exactly. It's a great way to save money. And

turkey is good other times of the year.

So let's talk about how to cook a turkey from frozen. How about why? Well, why? Because you don't have the time to thaw it, because you bought it on Tuesday and it won't thaw in time, because you bought it on Wednesday and it won't thaw on time, because you went for that sale on Wednesday night and it didn't thaw on time. There's no way. And don't you dare thaw it on the counter. You thaw it in the oven. And the fridge. And remember, it takes about, oh, this is a rough, but about a day for every four pounds for the thing to thaw in a fridge.

Three days for that twelve pound turkey. That's right. And you may not have remembered in time, so. You have a frozen turkey. Yes, you can cook it frozen, but you have to do a few things. And the first, it seems so obvious. Unwrap it, you'd be surprised. So, you'd have to peel that plastic wrapper off the turkey.

Yes, you do. And that's, uh, let me say that it's frozen, so mostly what you have to do is chip and strip and chip and strip, because it's not going to come off evenly. And also, you should remember that when it's frozen, there are those giblets in that bag inside the turkey cavity. Remember this? And they could actually be in both ends of the turkey. There could be some in one end and some in the other. So they're still in there. Don't worry about it. Just leave them in there. And now stick it in the oven. And what temperature do we want that oven to be?

You're going to do it just the same way you normally would, which is either 325 or 350. Don't alter the temperature of the recipe you're using or the recipe you usually use. If you don't have a recipe, I'm going to tell you, put it at 325.

Okay, and let me also say that if you have followed one of those recipes that are popular about cooking a turkey at a very high temperature, like 404, 425, this will not work. work with a frozen bird. It will burn on the surface before the interior gets good. So, okay, you're going to put it in the oven. Now, come back a couple hours later. In a couple hours, those giblets will have loosened from the frozen material inside the turkey. Now, get yourself some long handled tongs, some kitchen tongs and take out the jibblers and do check both ends. Now remember this thing is hot so you can't just touch it even though it's been frozen. It's starting to get hot so you're going to either want to wear silicon oven gloves and you're going to wash them later after you touch the turkey or you somehow want to Stabilize the turkey, uh, even with a clean kitchen towel, but then you've got to immediately throw it in the wash. Well, not immediately, but you've got to throw it in the wash. You just can't use it anymore. So you stabilize the turkey and use those tongs to probe around and pull out those giblet packets.

If the giblet packets are in a paper package, even pulling them out then might tear some of the paper. And you know what? In the end, the paper's not going to damage or hurt the turkey if it stays into the cooking. If those giblets are in a plastic container, you have to get it out. You do not want the plastic sitting in there. If you leave the

giblets in the whole cooking, it leaves that red, disgusting muck everywhere. And you also get a little liver flavor in the turkey. Well, I like that. Most people don't like that. Now, here's the other thing you should know. If you're going to shove a frozen turkey in the oven, of course you can't get a marinade to adhere to it. You can't really get a rub to adhere to it. So you're going to have to forego all of that and go with the cranberry sauce or chutney or something else at the table. And, A frozen turkey takes longer to cook.

It takes about 50 percent longer to cook. So let's say we had a 10 pound turkey, and it took 3 12 to 4 hours to roast. You're going up to 165 degrees.

Fahrenheit.

Fahrenheit. Fahrenheit. So if it's been frozen, so now you're talking almost six hours, right? If you had a 20 pound turkey, oh my goodness, it was already going to take you six or seven hours. Now it's going to take nine or ten hours. So again, especially if you're cooking it from frozen, go with the smaller ones if possible.

And no matter how you cook it, Cook a turkey, but particularly if you cook it from frozen, just remember that you've got to get it to the right internal temperature. You need an instant read meat thermometer. Now is the time to order one. If you don't have one, order it now for same day delivery so you have it for the holidays. And what you want to make sure is that the turkey is at, as Bruce says, 165 Fahrenheit. in both the breast and the thigh. And how do you check that temperature?

Insert the thermometer into the thickest part of the meat down as far as you can go without touching the bone. So you're gonna go into the thickest part of the thigh, the thickest part of the leg, the densest, thickest part of the breast meat without touching the bone. And once it's at 165, it is perfectly safe to

eat. Let me just add one more thing before we go on to stuffing said turkey. Uh, I'll say two things. Actually, two things. One is, if you have one of those fancy laser thermometers in the kitchen, this does not work. That's a

surface temperature only. That's

right, that's only going to take the outside surface temperature. And two, this cooking of a frozen turkey works better with turkeys under 14 pounds, 14 pounds or under again, not so good for the giant turkeys because they will start to overcook, particularly in the breast. So again, let's say I said 14, let's even say 15, 15 pounds or fewer. That's the absolute best way to cook a turkey. Okay. Let's talk about stuffing a turkey. And by the way, you cannot stuff a frozen bird.

And let me also suggest that you don't ever stuff a bird. And that's a personal. Personal preference, I know. In

any circumstance.

Some people like to stuff a bird. Here's the problem. When you make a stuffing, you're never going to fit it all into the bird anyway, right? There's always going to be extra that has to go in a baking pan. Everyone at your table only wants what was in the baking pan because it's got a crunchy top, because it puffs up. more because it has delicious, delicious flavor. If you like it in the turkey because, well, it soaks up more of those turkey juices, you could drizzle those turkey juices afterwards over the baked stuffing.

I'm gonna just tell you that I am not a fan of stuffed turkeys because, A, what I like is, um, the distinction here is between stuffing and dressing, and dressing is bad for your brain. baked separately in a pan. And the only part of the dressing I really like are all the crunchy bits at the corners and on top. So, you never are going to get crunchy bits when you stuff a turkey. My ex, before I met Bruce, that family always stuffed a turkey with sausage and eggs, like a raw egg mixed with sausage and breadcrumbs. And I swear to gosh, what came out of that turkey was meat pudding. Ew, gross. And I found it so disgusting. I couldn't even get near it because it was so gross to me. It's, it's too wet and oily and I don't ever get any of that crunch, which is all the part I want. I'd much rather bake dressing in a pan on the side.

And not only bacon in a pan, here's a tip. For people who enjoy the crunchy bits, like Mark and I do, Don't use a nine by 13 pan for that stuffing, press it into a sheet pan, right? Use a really big, like a 13 by 18 sheet pan. You're going to have so much crunch and so much surface area and it will take less time to bake. So when the turkey comes out and is going to rest for almost an hour, which a 12 to 14 pound turkey needs almost an hour to rest. That's when you could put the sheet pan of dressing in the oven. It'll come out crunchy and remember the one minute cooking tip. You will have lots of gravy in a thermos that you could pour on top of that dressing. If you like it a little softer.

Uh, for your grou why don't you just get a fountain and have a gravy fountain in the middle of the table. Wait,

now

that's an idea. Oh God, help me. Um, okay. So. Let's talk about one more thing about turkeys and that is for the people who want to deep fry them

This is of course

a thing of having the turkey to be deep fried and as you well know you must Not deep fry a turkey indoors. You must take it outdoors Because of the fire hazard involved. I'm sure you've seen it Endless Instagram reels and Tiktok videos of people burning their houses down when they deep fry a turkey. So, let's just say that you need a turkey deep fryer, which is a whole propane driven gadget in and of itself.

Make sure that what you're using is good. made for deep frying a turkey. So rule one, as Mark said, outside. Rule two, that turkey must be completely thawed. There cannot be any frozen bits and no ice. And you want it dry.

Why is that? Because if you want to really kill yourself, just throw an ice cube in a pan of hot oil. No, don't do that. No, don't do that.

And

it will explode all over your kitchen. Disclaimer, don't do that. No, don't do that. ever do. So the

same thing would happen if your turkey had ice or had water. You even want to pat it dry,

even on the inside. Absolutely. Get your hand in there

now. There is a problem that most people run into when they deep fry turkeys, and that's the oil overflowing. And that is also endlessly online videos. So, Mark, how do we avoid the oil overflowing? Okay, so

what you want to do is you want to, um, you want to actually put the turkey in the pot and then add the oil that you're going to need. Now, the turkey is now going to be covered in oil, I realize. Okay, great. So, take it out, put it on, like, an aluminum baking pan. Okay, great. Yes, it's now covered in oil, but just consider this part of the problem. And now you know how much oil can go in that pod to fry that turkey. And remember the oil that comes out on the turkey, you know, when you pull it back out, there's still oil in it. Don't worry about it because actually, because of the way the oil will boil, you need slightly less oil in the pot than even at this stage. So now, you know. How much oil to bring to the proper temperature. It

always amazes me when I see people deep fry a turkey and they fill a giant cauldron to the top with oil and then try and put a turkey in. And they burn their whole house down. And they're surprised by the displacement. Come on, it's basic physics, right? You put a boat in water and the water is displaced. That's how the boat floats. Well, you put a, you put yourself in a bathtub. What happens to the water in the bathtub?

Don't fill a bathtub to the rim and then get in

it. So do the same thing with the, think about that cauldron of oil as a bath for the turkey and you don't want to overflow. And remember this, oil's

going to get up to 325, 350 Fahrenheit. Mm hmm. And so it's super heated and trust me, it will explode if you let it fall down on the propane flame or if you somehow have a wet, water wet bird or an icy bird, it will explode and you just don't want this to happen. Let me say that if you're deep frying a turkey for the holidays, they sell turkey deep fryers. Get one. Don't eat it. improvise on

this. I have one other tip before we leave this section, what to do with turkey. If you're still afraid of making a turkey, or you're so nervous about it, check your supermarket flyers every week. I've talked about this so often on this podcast about getting deals and looking for coupons. Our local supermarkets have already started this week. Ready. Cooked turkey deals for the holidays with like 20 off, 30 off. If you buy the whole turkey with the cranberry sauce, there's nothing wrong with bringing it in. If you don't want to make it.

And remember also too, if you're afraid of roasting a whole turkey, you can always roast parts. You can always buy a package of turkey legs, turkey thighs. You can buy as Bruce did a turkey breast and roasted. You can even add. air fried turkey tenderloins. Remember, you don't have to make a whole turkey for Thanksgiving to have turkey for your Thanksgiving dinner. You can actually buy parts. In fact, I can tell you that braised oven braised turkey thighs are one of my favorite things. You braise them in red wine with lots of shallots and garlic like you're making a

cocoa van with turkey. Exactly. And

I love it. braised turkey thighs. So and you brown them like crazy. And then again, you build this sauce with broth and red wine and lots of herbs and garlic and shallots. It's delicious. It can't be better. And you can get away from doing the whole turkey if you don't want to. Okay, that's our entire video. turkey segment for this episode. Thanks for being a part of this journey. And let me say it would be great if you could subscribe to this podcast or if you could give it a rating on any platform you're on, you can give it a number of stars. Can we ask for five? Sure. And if you're on, I don't think they do that. And if you're on Apple podcasts, you can write a review. Even a simple review like a great podcast is a fine way to help support this otherwise unsupported and willfully unsupported podcast. Okay. Let's turn as is traditional to our last segment. What's making us happy in food this week. And I'm going to start out. Okay. So my thing is that turkey rice soup, because Bruce made this turkey breast. And then, uh, I said, when he roasted the turkey breast, I said, Oh my gosh, this means the promise of turkey rice soup, which is one of my favorite things in life. And you made this, uh, fresh tomato soup with the turkey in it, right? For the turkey meat. And you cook the rice separately.

I'm so crazy. I cook the rice in the rice cooker. And the reason you do that is you don't want the rice absorbing all that delicious broth, right? From the soups. You cook the rice separately. It will still absorb more, but okay. Then not only that, I had a pot on the stove where I sautéed my onions and my celery and then the fresh tomatoes and I poured in turkey stock which I found at Whole Foods in a container and I let that go. The turkey carcass, believe it or not, I put in the instant pot with water to make my own own fresh turkey stock and meat and that all got dumped in minus the bones. That whole thing went Not all the bones. Not all the bones. There were a few in my bowl. I picked a couple out

of my mouth,

but okay. And boy, was that good. Yes. But yes, I did it in three separate pots at once.

Uh, yeah, okay, that's insane. I would never make turkey, uh, soup, rice soup that way, but it did make me very happy after this week. Okay, your turn.

What's making me happy is the snack of choice that my sister has introduced me to, which Pear jam, which I make sometimes just for her with almond butter and you know, I had never really thought about it, but I sent Julie a box of jars of pear jam that I made just for her and she sends me back pictures of the spoon going back and forth between the almond butter and the pear jam. And the pear jam. I'm like, Oh, that looks good. And that is making me happy. Almond

butter is a really amazingly good thing. It's very good. I don't know. I listen, I am a peanut butter boy from early childhood, but almond butter is still a really nice thing. It's soupier, stickier than peanut butter. It's

oilier. I guess almonds are oilier? I don't know. I don't

know. It's oilier and soupier and so it doesn't sit on toast very well, in my opinion. But, you know, I still dip the pieces of bread in it because it's so tasty and, uh, I don't really do it with the pear jam as Bruce does, but hey, to each his own. So that's it. The podcast this week. We hope this is to your own too, or this is to your liking. Thanks for being part of this journey with us. We appreciate your spending time with us each week.

Every week we tell you what's making us happy in food. So please go to our Facebook group, also called Cooking with Bruce and Mark, and tell us what's making you happy in food this week. We want to know what is going on in your kitchen here at Cooking with Bruce and Mark.