Holiday Bird Is a Wit-Stuffed Recipe. Literary Turkey Pops Up Annually.

During the 1930s, this legendary holiday turkey added romance, intrigue, and a missing manuscript to the literary and epicurean landscape.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

St. Petersburg, FL - December 1, 2003 – In a salute to the legendary 1930s writer and storyteller Robert Benchley, a recipe for a famous holiday turkey appears in a holiday edition of wordsmitten.com’s online site.

“We think all turkey recipes are similar. Take a bird and season it. Eat it and take a nap,” comments Susan Johnson, online manager at Word Smitten, a literary webzine. “But we like Robert Benchley’s recipe. It combines plot, intrigue – a missing manuscript – and a few untamed characters from the days of the Algonquin Round Table, “ Johnson says, adding, “—very fitting for this holiday season.”

The unusual recipe for this spicy, blackened turkey—rumored to have been created by author Morton Thompson—attributes the comic remarks injected within the recipe to Benchley. “Try Googling for this bird. It’s amazing that Benchley’s retelling of it fell into public domain so quickly.”

A few interesting ingredients:
Plenty of preserved ginger
1 quart apple cider
Tabasco
And lots of thyme. Both kinds.

Benchley, a colleague of Dorothy Parker, Edna Ferber, Alexander Woollcott, and George S. Kaufman had written for The New Yorker for many years before moving to a California movie colony.

Read the additional notes on the missing manuscript, which is reported to have contained this famous recipe. A Seasoned Bird: http://www.wordsmitten.com/2003_seasoned_turkey.htm and learn what it takes to go boldly - and just shy of soberly - through this holiday season. As to why Word Smitten published this, Johnson says, “We like to distract our writers with spicy tales and something unusual to chomp on. Makes for pungent fiction.”

Word Smitten publishes news and intensely flavored interviews with legendary literary agents (Eric Simonoff, Jeff Kleinman) and book editors. The online magazine sponsors two fiction competitions with notable authors invited to preside as fiction judges for the annual events. To read award-winning flash fiction, visit www.wordsmitten.com/2003storycove_toc.htm and discover British writer John Ravenscroft's Walking Upside Down.

For more information on Word Smitten's internationally recognized publications, visit www.wordsmitten.com -- an innovative source for book publishing news and home to The Storycove (flash fiction) and Native Shore Fiction (short story) departments. In the company’s upcoming print edition – The Word Smitten Quarterly Journal - to be launched in 2004, authors including Thisbe Nissen and Frank McCourt provide exclusive interviews and short fiction. Information on charter memberships for subscribers is available through December 15. For details, visit www.wordsmitten.com or call (727) 409-0500 for more information on the new publication, The Word Smitten Quarterly Journal (WSQJ).

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