recipe card microstories: turkey divan

starter wife

Playing house in a rented mobile home. Dark paneling. The hallway, a tunnel. The odor of thousand Marlboros embedded in the variegated brown shag carpet. My kitchen the only bright spot: copper-bottomed pans, Corningware, a percolator.

And the Lucite recipe card file:  a wedding gift from my new mother-in-law. Chex mix and coffee cake. Every other recipe a casserole. Creamed soups, noodles and jello molds.

After Thanksgiving, she’d brought a casserole fashioned from leftover turkey and broccoli. It’s Parisian, she said. With curry powder! This tiny woman, named after a flower, who showed me the way to a man’s heart.

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Next week’s Cook & Tell foodletter features a recipe for turkey leftovers with a southwest twist—if you’re not already a subscriber, it’s free!