That's funny. Just around this same time last year (or was it the year before), a very big flock "processioned" over our house (immediate North of Montreal, Qc) to land and rest a while in the ornamental trees of a typical suburbia place, further East. The passer-bys were staring up at those strange black "eagles" flying around...

Within the past say 3 years I have turkey vultures spending the night in the huge cottonwood in the very back of my yard. They spend their nights in this neighborhood....sometimes at my house, some times at another house a block away. There is a huge group circling every night in the summer...like 20 or more birds. But I do have a picture where I counted about 40 birds in the tree one fall after the leaves were gone. I wonder when they will leave? ( I am in central Iowa) do they all migrate as a flock? One at a time? Where do they nest? And why do I never see a vulture eating any of the dozens of road kill deer in this area? I haven't seen a vulture on the ground in Iowa ever! Can anyone shed some light on these mysteries? Linda C

Thanksgiving is the only day we eat turkey. The rest of the time, give me a roast capon or a duck prepared almost any way at all. DH and I are just not turkey lovers. My niece makes a very fine brined and roasted turkey, but once a year is enough for us. We're sauce and gravy people. Stews, braises, casseroles - we love them. I do a fair amount of cooking and a lot of dining out, and we hold that a fine sauce is a work of art. Even though we eat a lot of steaks and roasts, a great sauce is always to be admired. There are too many bad ones around to not acknowledge when something is done correctly. One of our favorite restaurants does a great poached monkfish. This is the fish known as "the poor man's lobster" for both its taste and texture. It's a great little fish, with wonderful flavor. But nap it with Amoricaine sauce, and it rises to a whole 'nother level. This is a Bretonnese classic, and for good reason. Red wine and marrow Bordelaise on a rib-eye? Absolutely! Black truffle cream sauce on a filet? Yum! Mop that goodness up with a well made starch - roasted fingerling potatoes, barley risotto, fresh pasta, freshly baked bread rolls. Gravy and sauce was the way to extend meat to feed a lot of people. Most of the world still loves sauced dishes as treasured childhood memories. Like soup, they are warmth and comfort, soothing and homey. Chicken strips that are velveted and steamed with lop cheong sausage (classic Chinese technique) are stunningly tender, almost as soft as sous vide but we like the flavor and texture better. Perfect with a roasted garlic-oyster sauce gravy over lots of rice! Far better than stir-frying or roasting. As Charles Phan of The Slanted Door restaurant in SF points out in today's WSJournal, steaming is considered the ultimate test of a professional chef in Asia. Getting back to the NY Times' and Pepin's suggestions for steaming, one of the greatest dishes in Chinese cuisine is steamed sliced chicken breast with thin slices of Hunan ham. My mother introduced me to this dish (she took classes from one of the leading Chinese restaurateurs in San Francisco) and it still ranks with DH and me as one of the three finest poultry dishes we've had in our 45 yrs of dining. A glaze should always be light. Heavy-handedness is the mark of a bad cook. Peking Duck would not be the same without the glaze applied, for example.

I agree.......turkey vultures? I wonder if there is something dead around there that they are working on? Many thanks to them for cleaning up dead animals.