Avivah Werner

Category: nutrition

  • Using up turkey bones

    After two weeks of no food shopping, I went out last night and stocked up on chicken for the month, as well as a few other things.  Without checking, I assumed I would have room in the freezer for it (especially since I hadn’t put anything in for two weeks), which is usually true.  Well, that was a mistake.  My freezer is very full, for which I’m grateful.  But since I didn’t realize this until I got home, I put myself in a challenging situation of having alot of perishable food and no place to store it.  Believe me, I’m not complaining about having too much food.  But I was very busy for hours last night trying to find a solution (and I’m still working on it today!).

    I started by rearranging the fridge to make room for the new groceries.  Since earlier in the day I defrosted a large amount of fish to make two new recipes in bulk, I took that out.  Then I prepared two fish pies and several loaves of a three layer fish dish – so there was more room in the fridge – but then I needed freezer space to store it!  It was a classic catch 22 situation, and one that was repeated every time I tried to make more room.

    I realized last night that I had some fresh turkey bones in the fridge so I made a pot of stock (that now needs to go into the freezer).  I deboned it and have a pan full of turkey for a stir fry or pot pie now, but then my kids told me we have more turkey bones in the freezer.  So I figured I would just cook up another batch and be finished with all of the bones at once.

    Because of their shape, they take up a disproportionate amount of room, so even though I would need to put stock and a pan or two of shredded turkey back in the freezer, I figured I would have some space gain.  I asked my ds8 to bring up all the bones – and he brought up three big supermarket bags full!  I didn’t realize they had been accumulating – I vaguely remember dh bringing them home and asking what to do with them, and me telling him to put them in the freezer.  But I didn’t see how much he had, and assumed it was the same amount as usual (enough for one pot of soup).  Usually I don’t  have more than one batch in the freezer at a time at the very most, but there was a lot after Thanksgiving (in case you’re wondering how we could possibly have so many turkey carcasses, we got them for free from a friend who owns a restaurant).  I’m now on my second bagful, so we’re down about 8 carcasses.  Just 10 or so carcasses still waiting to be dealt with!!  My sink and counter are full of them!

    I’ve decided to spend all day making stock and since it’s so concentrated, I can freeze it in small amounts.  When I defrost it, I’ll add plenty of water and each container of stock will be the base for a delicious soup.  Since I’ll have an entire shelf available in the freezer with all of those bones taken out, I’m planning to spend some time cooking ahead all the chicken I brought home and then pans of chicken will replace the bones.  And then I should have a little more room in the fridge – so I can go shopping for vegetables. 🙂

    By the way, do you know how extremely good for you properly prepared bone broths/stocks are (not the stuff that comes in a can from the supermarket)?  I didn’t, until reading Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon a couple of years ago, a combination of a cookbook and nutritional information resource.  She goes into detail about the benefits – a gelatin rich broth (the gelatin is released by the bones that are cooked for a long time) supply hydrophilic colloids to the diet (you’ll have to read the book to know what that means!), and are protein sparing and thereby allow the body to fully utilize the proteins taken in.  Gelatin also is useful in the treatment of many chronic diseases.   Broths also contain amino acids, cartilage, and collagen, which have been used to treat a number of health ills.  In short, they are very nourishing and if you are on a limited food budget, they are not only inexpensive to make, but can substitute for meat in the diet.  You can cook your grains in them, use it to flavor other dishes, or use it as a base for incredibly flavorful soup.  I always marvel at how everyone seems to think that you need a powdered MSG filled soup mix to give a soup flavor – definitely not!

    Last winter I posted instructions on how to make stock from scratch, so if you want to try your hand at it, you can click here.

    Avivah

  • Coughing and feeling yucky

    Everyone’s been under the weather here for the last few days, when the weather suddenly got very cold.  I always find that sudden weather changes result in the kids getting sick.  This time it’s a runny nose and chesty cough. 

    My very good friend organized our synagogue Chanuka party to encourage a sense of community among members, and my older girls are volunteering (they just left to take care of setting up and whatever else they need to do before it starts a little later today).  I’m sure it will be a lot of fun and a nice opportunity to spend time with people I don’t get to regularly see much of.  But I don’t think we’ll go, as much as all the kids are hoping that we will.  

    When my husband gets home, I think I’ll run out and buy a homeopathic remedy.  We have one remedy for coughing (spongia tosta), but it’s for a dry barking cough, and isn’t really a good fit for the kind of cough they have.   Homeopathics are very specific, and the best benefits come from accurately matching the symptoms and remedy.  I don’t know nearly enough about homeopathics, so I did research online.  (I just love the internet – it’s fantastic how much great and useful information you can get right away.) 

    I don’t take the kids to doctors unless they really get sick, which means they rarely go.  For something like this, the doctor would confirm that there’s some kind of virus going around and that there isn’t any medication that will help, that it will pass with time (I know this from experience, which is why I don’t bother going anymore).  Once when I went to the pediatrician with a child hit hard by a virus, she told me the above, and added that most parents want to leave the doctor’s office with a prescription, since that it makes them feel they are doing something to help their child.  

    Avivah

  • Rickets on the rise in US

    Do you remember years ago learning about rickets?  I seem to remember hearing that it was found most in children living in dreary tenement buildings in the early part of the last century who suffered from malnutrition because of poverty.

     Well, now it seems that rickets is on the rise right here in the US.  What causes rickets?  Lack of vitamin d, found in fortified milk but naturally absorbed by spending time in the sun.  We now have a generation of children who are spending most of their days inside on their computers, game boys, and watching tv.  They aren’t getting any sunlight and they aren’t getting exercise. There are plenty of concerns I’ve had about this, but the concern about rickets  is one that never occurred to me.

    What is even more concerning is that many children who aren’t in bad enough shape to be diagnosed with rickets are still suffering from softer than normal bones – hence the increase in broken bones among kids nowadays.  Since strong bones are formed as children and that’s what we take with us into our adult years, we should be concerned if a large number of children aren’t building their bones up when they are young. 

     Interestingly, I was just thinking about if broken bones are becoming more common last week – a 10th grader in my carpool just broke his foot playing basketball, and my son told me that it’s not uncommon in school for kids in his high school to break bones while playing.  As a parent, I found this very alarming. I don’t remember it being common at any point in my childhood for my agemates to break a bone.  In the article that I linked to, they state that exercise and good nutrition are strongly linked to strong bones (obvious, but a good point still), and that kids nowadays are significantly more likely to break a bone than in past generations.  This also points to why in some families breaking a bone is common while it others it rarely occurs – because the nutrition and lifestyle practices of the families are very different and thereby support different kind of outcomes.

    Check out this recent article on the topic of rickets.

    Avoiding rickets and building strong bones isn’t rocket science – give your kids good quality food to eat and make sure they get outside regularly for some sun and exercise – how much easier could it be?  Obviously for lots of parents, not easy enough.

    Avivah

  • Egg substitutes

    For many years, I thought that being a vegetarian was a healthier way of eating, and that being a vegan was an ideal.  Fortunately, I never quite managed complete veganism (except for a two month period), but we usually used animal products only once a week.  I was easily able to go for weeks with no eggs in the house since I virtually never used eggs, just substitutes for eggs.

     Well, I’ve continued to learn about nutrition and no longer believe that removing animal products from the diet is beneficial.  Actually, I now think it’s harmful.  But I’ve watched the price of eggs go so drastically high that I decided it’s time to dig out my old egg replacer recipes.

    You can buy egg replacers, but they’re usually pretty expensive.  Whether you are a vegan, looking to cut down on cholesterol, or just looking to cut your baking costs, here  are some egg substitute recipes that you may find useful. 

    My favorite is the first, which my 7 yod whipped up a large batch of today- this is a substitute for what is sold in the stores as Ener-G Egg Replacer, and you can use it for any kind of baked goods.  We were able to make quadruple the recipe for under $4, which should last us for months:

    1 c. potato starch

    3/4 c. tapioca flour (sold in health food stores)

    2 t. baking powder

    Mix it all together, store in an airtight container.  Lasts for ages!  (With this in the pantry, I always appreciate that’s it not a problem to realize in the middle of a recipe that I don’t have enough eggs.  :))  To use, mix 1 1/2 t. of the mix with 2 T. water – this replaces one egg in a recipe.  1 1/2 t. mix and 1 T. water = 1 yolk.

    Some more substitutes:

    1 T. cornstarch + 2 T water = 1 egg (good for quick breads, but not cakes)

    1 T soy flour + 2 T water = 1 egg

    1T. oil, 1 T. water, 1 t. baking powder = 1 egg (good for quick breads, but not cakes)

    2 t. flax meal + 2 T warm water = 1 egg (beat until consistency of an egg)

     Avivah

  • Twins? Interesting way to ask

    I told you a couple of days ago about the strong likelihood of twins, and thought that it would be pretty agonizing to wait for another four weeks for the next midwife’s visit to know for sure. I don’t do ultrasounds as a matter of routine, but was really starting to think about getting one done just to find out for sure.

    Since the midwife told me to start eating a diet for twins, that same day I called a friend with twins and asked her if she had any books to lend. She asked who they were for, and was quite surprised when I told her they might be for me, since she saw me the day before and didn’t realize I was expecting. I explained the situation, why the midwife thought what she did and why she was waiting one more month. When I got there, she took me down to her office and took out her crystal pendulum. (I didn’t know she would do this, and didn’t even think of it as option to explore using.)

    A little background here – this friend has lots of experience with alternative healing type of approaches, and I got to see her use the pendulum several years ago when we were neighbors. At that time, my young daughter was coughing very badly all night long, and I had asked her for recommendations for which homeopathic remedy to use. She took out her pendulum, and asked several questions about specific remedies, and told me what to use based on that.

    The way the pendulum works is that it helps accesses the intuitive mind and bypasses the conscious/intellectual mind, channeling unseen energies. The person asking and person being asked don’t know the answers consciously, but on the soul level, the answers are known. That’s how I explain it, anyway. It sounds hocusy-pocusy and many people don’t know why or how it works, just that it works. So the pendulum will spin to the left for a ‘no’, and to the right for a ‘yes’. Only yes or no questions can be asked.

    Back to my story. I went downstairs with my friend, and she told me to hold out my hand, and took it. Then she took out her pendulum and I watched her hand stay perfectly still as it started spinning right, then left. After several minutes, she picked up the book Having Twins from her desk and said, “Here, you need this.” I told her, “No way, I want to hear the questions asked out loud, you can’t just think them to yourself and then give me the book!” She told me she wanted to check first about the possibility of polyhydramnios and the health of the baby/ies and didn’t want to ask it out loud in case the answers weren’t good.

    So she did it out loud for me – here were the questions:
    – Is Avivah a male? (left)
    – Is Avivah pregnant? (right)
    – Is Avivah pregnant with twins? (right)
    – Does Avivah have polyhydramnios? (left)
    – Are both babies healthy? (right)
    – Is Avivah pregnant with identical twins? (Not saying :))
    – Is Avivah pregnant with fraternal twins? (the opposite answer of above)
    – Is Avivah pregnant with two girl babies?
    – Is Avivah pregnant with two boy babies?
    – Is Avivah pregnant with a girl and boy?

    The answer to the last three was a ‘no’ to two of the questions and ‘yes’ for one of them. I’ll keep all of you in suspense and let you know in a few months if the specifics are right. As you can see, there were some questions that might seem redundant (like the identical/fraternal one), but are a good checking mechanism.  One possibility to stay aware of, though, is that the emotions of the one using the crytal can ‘cross’ with the one being tested.  And since this friend has had twins, that’s something for me to keep in mind.

    She asked me before all of this what my intuition was telling me, and I told her that I don’t like to say what my intuitive thoughts are until after I know the facts. This process did confirm my own intuition (or is it wishful thinking?), and fit in with a dream I had the night before the midwife came (that we suddenly needed a larger dining room table to fit everyone), which suddenly came flooding back to me as soon as the midwife did the measurements.  That would still make sense if we were just having a singleton, though.

    So that was interesting. It remains to be seen if it was accurate or not, so I”ll still be waiting for the most part for an official confirmation before mentioning anything (in real life) to anyone one way or another.

    Avivah

  • Link for more info on healthy fats

    Some of you are wondering about what I wrote about coconut oil – how can it be so healthy if it’s a saturated fat? Well, we’ve been fed a line about the role of fats in our diet, and what constitutes a healthy fat. I’m not going to write about it, since there is so much written that documents this very important point. Instead, I’ll share with you a site that is the most helpful site I’ve found about nutrition.

    Here’s a link for a bunch of articles about fats – http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/index.html. Warning – many of these articles are scientific in nature, and don’t make quick and easy reading. But they are really worth the time; they weren’t written to do a quick sell on some ideas, but to put forth scientifically documented facts.

    Reading all of this research meant that I had to totally redefine my idea of what was healthy – we now use butter, coconut oil, and animal fat for most of our cooking. These used to be things I stayed as far away from as I could! I now use as few vegetable oils as possible, the exception being virgin olive oil in salads. Most of the vegetable oils that you buy in the supermarket (sunflower, canola, safflower, soy, vegetable) are all processed and inherently bad for your health. That’s not to say I don’t use them at all – I do still use them when I bake yeast breads (for quick breads I use coconut oil) – but I don’t fool myself that they are good for us. They are just cheaper and sometimes easier than alternatives that are actually beneficial for you.

    Happy reading!

    Avivah

  • Candida die off

    Hope you haven’t thought I disappeared! As you may remember, I alluded to an anti-candida diet I was considering committing myself to a few weeks ago, and I actually stuck with it for three weeks. Three weeks is nowhere near long enough to kill off candida – it takes about a month for every year you’ve had candida, so it’s a long term process.

    I was feeling pretty good about doing it, since it was a big change from my usual way of eating, and wasn’t prepared at all for what’s known as Herxheimer’s reaction, or die off, when it hit. I knew about die off, but didn’t expect I would be hit by it, since I already wasn’t eating sugars and flours, plus I had taken out all starches for a couple of weeks a short while earlier and not had any die off reactions. I thought it was for people making very radical changes to their diets, and I didn’t put myself in that category.

    Well, let me tell you, die off is seriously no fun. I was feeling increasingly tired, and by the third week, was really dragging. By the last weekend, I was so exhausted I was sleeping 18 hours a day, and severely nauseous every single minute. My husband was worried when he looked at me; he said he had never see me look like that – I looked really ill. I felt too sick to drag myself to the computer and research if it was normal, and after the second day of feeling this terrible, I had a potato (the only things I could think of eating were things that weren’t on the diet).

    Amazingly, that ended the die off.  The reason is with die off, what your body reacts to is the candida dying off, and as they die, numerous toxins are thrown into your system (most of which are alcoholic byproducts, which results in massive hangover like symptoms). It’s an important cleansing reaction, but can be very hard, as I found out for myself. As soon as you feed the candida, even something seemingly healthy like a baked potato, they stop dying and start growing again, and you feel better.

    So the following day I did the research and it turns out that it was all very normal and healthy because the body was cleaning out toxins and to be expected – but I hadn’t been ready for it. It took a week of eating my usual way to feel back to myself, which leaves me discouraged that after all my effort, I undid all my gains. Since I really still believe that the candida issue needs to be addressed, I see this as just a short term approach to relieving the unpleasantness. With something like this, things have to get worse before they get better. Knowing that , I don’t emotionally feel good about not getting back on the candida diet. I know I should go back on the anti candida plan, but I’m not exaggerating when I say that I was totally non functional when I was going through die off, and even though now I’ve read about how to do it more gradually so the reaction doesn’t hit so hard, I’m really afraid to put myself in that position again.

    I’ll share some links sometime over the weekend about nutrition that may interest some of you, and then get back to sharing some more thoughts on parenting and navigating through the wonderful opportunity we are given every day, called life!

    Have a wonderful weekend,

    Avivah

  • My humongous coconut oil order

    For the last year and a half, I’ve been using organic, non hydrogenated coconut oil in place of oil, margarine, shortening – it’s wonderful to make fun foods that are actually good for the kids now! Things like biscuits, cookies, and other things I used to put solidly in the ‘pure junk’ category are now in the ‘pretty healthy’ group.

    When I started using coconut oil about a year and a half ago, I decided I needed to buy it in a big enough amount that it would be reasonably cost effective (since we have so many people to feed!). So I contacted a bunch of coconut oil companies until I found one that sold what I wanted at a price that was somewhat affordable. They didn’t know what to do with an individual who wanted to buy amounts of the oil that only restaurants purchased, and it took a few phone calls for them to figure out where in the computer system my order should go. But we got it worked out and I bought a 5 gallon pail of coconut oil (40 lb), which we go through increasingly fast as time goes on. It took me nine months to go through the first pail; now we are at the bottom of the second pail and it’s been only five months. It does get costly! But I really feel it’s worth it.

    Today I decided to find out if the same company would sell me the virgin organic (has a coconut flavor and smell that the regular organic doesn’t have) in a large amount. For almost two weeks, I have been sticking to my anti-candida diet, and surprisingly, really haven’t been finding it so difficult. The hardest thing has been getting in enough fats; it is really taking a very conscious effort. I was thinking about how to make it easier, and it occurred to me that if I got the higher grade of coconut oil, I could use it as a food instead of just as an ingredient to cook with. When I first called, they of course told me that the largest size is 1 lb containers (which has often been the standard first response of companies), but they passed me on to someone who assured me that I could get this stuff in the 5 gallon size, too (after I told her I was already buying 5 gallon pails of the other stuff).

    So I ordered a bucket of each, which is 80 lb of coconut oil, half the regular for cooking, the other half the expensive stuff. I hope this will get us through at least the next six months without needing to place another order. As expensive as it is, it is still a third of the price that the retail buyer pays in the health food store. I tend to keep a pretty tight food budget, and this would seem to be outside the limits that I’ve established, but I look at it like this: I am careful with what I spend on food so we can eat plenty (quantity), and eat well (quality). I save in lots of other areas, which helps create enough financial room to make large orders like this.

    After I made my order, I learned something interesting. The representative said that the oil will be processed specifically for my order – I assumed that they just had buckets of this oil sitting around, but actually, this is considered a custom order, so I will be getting very freshly processed coconut oil. That was a nice thought!

    I am really, really looking forward to getting the virgin organic coconut oil. If you don’t know about the many fantastic benefits of coconut oil, do some quick searching on Google. I was amazed at what I learned about something I had always assumed was bad (because it was a saturated fat). It is really great stuff – and unlike lots of things that entail major changes to improve our nutrition, this is really easy. Just use coconut oil to replace all the bad fats in your diet (and it is even good for frying with, since unlike other oils, it remains stable at high temps).

    Avivah

  • Buying grain mill, treating candida

    It’s snowing!! After a winter that hasn’t felt like winter, snow has finally appeared. Just a few days ago it was so warm that it felt like spring, and I was wondering why I wasted money at the beginning of winter buying everyone boots. It’s now cold enough that even my child who insists he’s never cold just told me that his ears are painfully cold, and actually took my advice when I mentioned that hats are made for this kind of weather. The kids are so excited!

    Today has been a mellow kind of day so far. I’m preparing my order for the bulk foods distributor that I go to every few months. I found a huge place that sells to the stores, but was also willing to sell to me as an individual. It’s a 2.5 hour drive to get there, but the prices are so much cheaper than the health food store, and I buy such large amounts that it’s worth it (I buy 50 pound bags). I found another potential source that is in the same small town as a surplus store that I also like to go on the days that I do this shopping in a neighboring state; I will give them a call tomorrow and see if I can order grains from them. I would love it if I could consolidate my shopping to a smaller radius than I currently now have to travel to, but I will have to wait for tomorrow to give them a call.

    After thinking about it for a year, I finally ordered a grain mill on Friday (it should be here at the end of this week), so for the first time I will be getting 50 lb of hard red wheat, 50 lb of hard white wheat, and 50 lb of soft white wheat, to make fresh bread with. I also ordered 25 pounds of buckwheat and 50 lb of millet, as well as the usual 50 lb of oats and cornmeal. I buy brown rice closer to home, only 20 lb at a time. My kids like buckwheat (kasha) as a side dish for lunch or dinner with coconut oil and salt, and for breakfast with milk and sweetener, but since I usually buy only five pounds or so at a time at the health food store, I end up not having it around for long, so I finally decided to just buy a big amount so I won’t have to think about it so often. Also, my oldest son is sensitive to gluten, so I’m planning to grind the millet and buckwheat and make fresh gluten free flour to bake with for him.

    I was thinking what a funny juxtaposition it is, in buying all of this grain right now, while also trying to decide what to do about eliminating grains altogether from my diet. I have been on what most people would call a fairly restrictive food plan for over a year and a half. No flour, sugar, wheat, sweeteners of any kind, fruit juice, sweet fruits…but I’ve gotten used to eating like that and I don’t find it restrictive anymore. When I started eating like this, I had hopes that the fungal toenail infection I’ve had for ages would be helped (that wasn’t the reason I did it, but I hoped it would be a side benefit). Although there were lots of other benefits, that wasn’t one of them. Years ago, I asked both a naturopath and an acupuncturist who I was seeing how to deal with the toenail issue. I didn’t think it was a big deal, but both of them told me it’s difficult to treat, because it’s caused by an overgrowth of yeast internally.

    Recently, I tried the Maker’s Diet, stage one, which wasn’t a big deal for me since I don’t eat most of the stuff that needs to be eliminated, so it just meant replacing all my current carbs with squash and having kefir instead of milk. I thought that would address the yeast issue, but no luck. Dh told me that he thinks I did it for too short a time (the book recommended 2 weeks, but the purpose was to realign the body’s sugar levels, not expressly for this issue). I’ve been somewhat reluctantly researching how to seriously address the candida, which I’m sure is the source of the problem, and at this point, I’m pretty sure how to deal with it. Why am I reluctant? Because I don’t yet feel willing to follow the advice on how to take care of the problem. Basically, it means eating only proteins (no beans, dairy), non starchy veg (no carrots, beets, squash, sweet potatoes), and no fruits except for lemons and limes in moderation – and it will be probably 3 – 6 months until I see results, possibly longer. I know it will do the job, but I am very intimidated by the idea of taking on a food plan like this for such a long time.

    If all of this were just about the toenail, it wouldn’t be a big deal, but I believe that problem is a sign that something is internally imbalanced, and imbalances left unresolved get worse over time and start manifesting themselves as disease. So I’m trying to work up the internal resolve to commit myself to following a candida program; I’ve given myself the deadline of Tuesday night to make a decision by so that I don’t draw the decision out for so long. I think I will do it, I just need some time for my mind to get used to the idea!

    Now I need to get back to the big fun of researching algebra textbooks for oldest ds!

  • Making broth from scratch

    I’ve been feeling tired the last couple of days, and I’ve been frequenting parenting boards more than usual since it’s easier to be online than to be actually doing stuff when I’m this exhausted. Tonight I just have had enough. It’s like a huge ocean of lousy parenting suggestions. 🙁

    So I decided to shift mental gears and instead of writing about parenting I’ll share with you how to make chicken stock. Especially in the winter when kids aren’t feeling good, it’s great to have some germ fighting chicken soup on hand! Lots of people think that making chicken stock from scratch is hard and think that adding soup mix is necessary to give it flavor. I don’t know where this idea came from, since there’s nothing much easier than homemade stock. My kids make ours on a regular basis, and every time, it is delicious! I had a couple of turkey carcasses in the fridge today, and this is the perfect use for them.

    Put the chicken/bones/whatever you are using in the pot, covering it with at least a couple of inches with water. Some people like to skim it after bringing it to a boil, to make the soup clearer, but I stopped doing that years ago. Once it is boiling, add your veggies – onions, garlic, parsnip, carrot, celery, turnip, rutabaga, squash, tomato – use as many or as few of these in combination as you like. Personally, we use most of the veggies listed – they make for an incredibly rich flavor. Just peel the vegetables and pop them in the pot; don’t worry about chopping them up.

    Once the soup is boiling again, turn it all the way down and let it simmer, for hours. I sometimes start a large pot before I go to sleep, and leave it on the lowest setting overnight. When I wake up, the house smells amazing and there is a delicious pot of soup waiting for us. The long cooking time is really important in giving the flavors a chance to meld and deepen.

    If you want to put a couple of tablespoons of vinegar in when it’s cooking, that will help leach vitamins from the bones and adds to the nutritional value. I like to use Bragg’s raw apple cider vinegar for this. If you don’t, it will still be good for you. Some people also like to let it cool in the fridge once it’s finished cooking and then skim off the fat from the top so the broth is clear- I don’t do this, but just in case it’s something you want to try, I’m mentioning it.  Then you can put the fat that you skim off in the fridge and use it to cook with!

    When it’s finished, I take out the carcass, and take all of the turkey meat off of it. Then I use it in a turkey pot pie for another night’s dinner. I end up with so much soup that we have soup as a first course for one meal, and then later in the week, add rice to whatever soup is left for a hearty lunch meal. Amazing how much good eating can come from a turkey carcass that most people would throw away!

    Avivah