Martha Stewart says: Dispatch the Cock.

"...Seconds later, Martha Stewart regains her composure, flashing the subtly supercilious grin that has helped her conquer the American bourgeoisie...To anyone that knows her work, the news that Martha Stewart is a domineering control freak will hardly come as a surprise -- control, after all, is what Stewart sells."
--Spy Magazine, July/August 1996

I am an out-of-the-closet Martha Stewart viewer for too many reasons to count (a long way from the days of my "Is Martha Stewart Living?" column). I love her cooking segments (of course they're derivative, as Spy Magazine charged in 1996; that's kinda the point); I love her imperiousness; I love her for returning from prison to grind her enemies' noses into the dirt. I love it when she gets all visibly uncomfortable with the huddled KMart Masses who built her empire and seeks refuge at Macy's. I love her inability to conceal her contempt of has-been food "personalities" like Emeril, which she barely bothers to disguise, because he is (at the moment) making her money. (I still think buying him was a bad business decision shoved down her throat by her irritating Chairman Charles Koppelman).

That being said,  I've gotten behind this season since she switched stations in this market and they exiled her over to a cable number, and I keep forgetting she's on. I usually don't watch the holiday shows anyway (I hate crafting), but I TiVo'd yesterday's episode because TooMuchSexy Thomas Keller was on. I had just read the new Esquire feature from Ryan D'Agostino who cooked from Ad Hoc the night Thomas Keller came to dinner and it's added considerably to my already-rich library of fantasies, culinary and ...otherwise. Keller told Martha he's never spatchcocked. He made leek bread pudding instead. But here is a very old Esquire link to a Thomas Keller Thanksgiving. It involves mayonnaise [my personal kryptonite], but Keller would never steer you wrong. He also showed Martha some of his "lightbulb moments," like how to spank a pomegranate (thank you, Chef...speaking of fantasy: otherwise).

But she kicked off the first segment by showing Meet the Press's David Gregory how to spatchcock a turkey:

"Now, you know what it is to spatchcock a piece of information, right? To interpose something unexpected? That's called spatchcocking...It's an 18th century term. It's said to be Irish in origin. The theory is that the word is an abbreviation of 'dispatch the cock... Which...is a Bird. You can say it...it's a word. [Not one giggle or titter. The audience has clearly been briefed.] It's a way of grilling a bird after you split it open, down the back, spread the wings, spread the legs, and put it in a rather compromising position."

The butchered product almost puts one in mind of her spineless husband Andy who left her for her 20-years-younger assistant. (Or, as Spy Magazine put it: "not to be confused with the famously well-hung Police guitarist of the same name.")

I love Spy almost as much as I love Martha, but their big 1996 beef with her seemed to be that she didn't actually do all the legwork she chronicled in her magazine and on her show:

"Without her downtrodden legion of assistants, people are beginning to realize, Martha Stewart would probably be as helpless around the home as the rest of us -- just a lot less fun to be with... 'She goes on TV and says, 'I found this,' when actually someone on her staff of 50 found it,' says a former Living employee."  [emphasis added]

Seriously? I don't think we're supposed to take "hands-on television" quite so literally. If Martha isn't out personally plowing the back-forty before breakfast, it's ok by me. Oprah hired a dog nanny to raise her puppies and nobody bitched (pardon the pun). Does anybody think she's hanging out in the greenroom backstage passing out the Gatorade? Oprah ended up in a lawsuit over her stupid "aHa moment" catchphrase. My Wildest Dream? Here's a hint: it is NOT a Pontiac. (You get a car! You get a car! Oh Please. You get a Commercial! YOU get a commercial! How's GM doing now, by the way?) I can't stand Oprah. I find her smug -- the very personification of Condescension masquerading as Warmth. Martha doesn't bother to fake it. I can get behind that. As Spy put it, "If you respect Martha Stewart, respect her because she knows there's a sucker born every minute. Don't respect her because you're one of them." That's A Good Thing. If Control is what she's selling, I'm buying, and it's a bull market.

I'm not cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year, but I don't want any readers to feel suckered out of a Thanksgiving column. The guys over at The Bitten Word have posted their rendition of Martha's spatchcocking, along with this helpful video: