Having grown up on sterile, deep frozen turkeys, I have always had the sneaking suspicion that my Thanksgiving was missing something. About a year ago, my wife and I moved into a Dominican neighborhood, an experience that has brought me into contact with an almost endless array of new, exciting foods and food services, notably the collection of "Vivero" joints in my area. Basically, these are sort of like a cross between a butcher and a pound. You go in, choose your bird or rabbit, tell them what you want done with it, and come back in a half hour to pick it up.

I've been circling the Vivero for a while, curious but also a little nervous about getting my poultry from a place that looks so much like an animal shelter. Still, with turkey costing a fortune in my neighborhood, I felt like this might be the year to try out a fresh bird. Because of the season, the owners recently got in a shipment of about 400 turkeys, and I found that the whole process was surprisingly easy. Basically, I picked out my bird (I was looking for an animal in the 15-pound range that looked guilty), and told them that I wanted it plucked, cleaned, de-legged, beheaded, but generally left intact. Explaining this took a while, as the workers only spoke Spanish and I only spoke English. Still, between us, we managed to get it all worked out.

About a half hour later, my bird was ready. When she saw that the legs were still attached (my Spanish, clearly, is not very good), the lady at the window gave me a funny look, but immediately endeavored to make the package a little less unwieldy. Her method was to, basically, jam the turkey's feet up its rear end. She managed to get one in before giving up.