The joy of anticipation: leftover-turkey sandwiches

By Bill St. John, Special to The Denver Post

I am the eldest of nine kids. Growing up, the family was a dozen at the dinner table, if you counted the Great Dane underneath.

My mother’s oven was like Noah’s ark; everything entered in pairs. Two hams, two pans of scalloped potatoes, two peach pies. And, on Thanksgiving, two turkeys.

One ginormous bird would have done, but we were keen on leftovers. No St. John ever disputed that the turkey tasted better after Thanksgiving Day than on it, when served between slightly toasted Pepperidge Farm white bread, slathered in Best Foods mayonnaise, with a slice of cranberry jelly and cracked black pepper.

Until the pope changed his mind sometime during the 1960s and it became OK to eat meat on Fridays, the absolute worst thing about being raised Catholic was having to wait until Saturday to eat those sandwiches.

The Thanksgiving turkey is the closest thing that we modern Americans have to the communal pig of olden days, slaughtered once a year and of which every single part is used or eaten. I believe “tetrazzini” is Italian for “smithereens.”

After the slices of leftover meat for sandwiches, perhaps the most useful remains from the turkey are its carcass bones and meat. A defatted broth, quarts of it, is but the wellspring for any number of dishes come weeks ahead — soups, stews, risotti, even cures for colds.

To pair wines with such fare— from the sandwiches to the hashes— choose wines equally as casual and multipurpose. Here are some suggested whites, a dry pink, then reds, with a recipe as well that both uses some leftover bird and successfully cleans up those sweet potatoes and their marshmallow snows. matic white is killer good. $15

2013 Chapoutier Les Vignes de Bila-HautWhite Cotes du Roussillon France: A blend of four different southern French white grapes that offers up both a plush, juicy texture but also a tangy, zesty finish. $13-$15 wee-wood chardonnay, with crystalline fruit (no tropicals) as if drinking liquid pear skin. $25