I’m a big fan of Food Channel’s “The Kitchen.” Recently” Katie Lee Biegel the hotsy-totsy southern Ohioan in the cast told her fellow chefs and viewers that since the show’s inception these happy-go-lucky culinary artists have offered their audience 35 – count ‘em – 35 recipes for the preparation of the turkey

Enough already, I’d say. Nevertheless, as soon as Katie quit demonstrating her 36^th recipe, her colleague Jeff Mauro chimed in with his latest recipe for leftover Thanksgiving turkey, which involved filling a giant tortilla with yesterday’s menu—turkey, dressing, cranberry relish, candied yams (ish!)  and green bean casserole, folding it, diploma style, and deep frying the whole mess, then slathering it with turkey gravy.

Jeffrey, Jeffrey! You’re a charming Chicago guy if that’s possible, but you forgot to credit its author, my Grandma Wood, who 80 years ago introduced me to the dinner that emptied her Kelvinator fridge the day after turkey day. 

INSTRUCTIONS: Place a sheet of buttered potato lefse on your plate. At one edge, place shreds of fowl (grandma never served turkey because chicken tasted so much better) alongside the lefse, place a line of mashed rutabagas, followed by creamy coleslaw.  Pick up the outer edge and begin to roll it into a diploma-shaped “boose.” Seal the ends as best you can. Insert one end of the “boose” into your gaping maw, bite down, chew, swallow. Repeat. If this sounds too challenging just think of your “boose” as a large tube of Crest toothpaste, its dispenser small end inserted in your mouth. Squeeze, chew, etc. etc. Easy peasy.

If fowl is not your favorite viand, never fear for a horn of plenty will make your “boose” an even more spectacular adventure. At the late lamented Swanson’s bar in Blair, Wis., tiny gravy-soaked meatballs filled lefse “booses” for decades. If you’re near a fridge, add creamy coleslaw for crunch. Grandma Wood’s favorite “boose” always included slabs of side pork soaked in milk, dipped in flour, fried until shatteringly crisp. Coleslaw a must. Finally if you want to keep away from turkey, another possibility is lutefisk, which is made edible by sliding it onto a “boose.” Along with some nutmeg-scented mashed rutabaga. If that sounds too mushy for your palate, just remember the Crest tube.

I hope I haven’t offended turkey lovers like founding father Benjamin Franklin, who wanted to make Tom Turkey the national bird. They’re much kinder than the rapacious eagle, but I wonder how many Boy Scouts would be so eager to chase all those merit badges if their reward was to be called a Turkey Scout.

And Turkophiliacs can also take heart in Tom’s somnolence. Eagles’ aeries in northern Wisconsin have been reported as having contained scores of dog collars which once belonged to Pekinese and other small species. I somehow can’t picture a 25-pound turkey strutting around a barnyard, grabbing a Great Dane and heading back to the aerie for supper.