Feasting on Flavor, Not on Fat

Jones finished his sentence: ". . . so their flavors release."

"That's right," McKee responded, visibly impressed. "I can't tell you anything you don't already know!"

Each nook and cranny of the Joneses' home displays testaments to the sisters' abiding compulsions: cooking food and amassing objects with which to prepare, serve and store it. With an eye for value and quality, Jones scours restaurant supply houses, flea markets, junk stores and Web sites for collectibles. She keeps some and then trades up at her own flea market stall at the Lions Club in Springfield on Saturdays.

As a result, she satisfied McKee's and Potter's every request for serving pieces or cooking equipment they had not brought with them, supplying an ice cream scoop purchased at a yard sale, a measuring cup ("Pyrex, 1942!"), a boning knife ("I bought it on eBay") and a soup plate ("It won't be here long; I'm trading up for Noritake").

There is, however, one thing she will never part with: an enormous circa-1950s International Harvester reach-in freezer. "It weighs 500 pounds and it took five people to get it up here" to the second-floor condo, she said, slyly adding that she had paid only $75 for it.

Because there will be just five people at the Joneses' dinner, McKee opted for a seven-pound turkey breast instead of a whole bird, showing Jones how to debone it, stuff it with a semolina and root vegetable dressing (reserving some to bake as a side casserole topped with bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese) and tie it like a culinary pro before roasting. They completed the meal in a few hours: The soup was pureed and garnished; sweet potatoes were roasted, crushed and finished with ginger and a drizzle of olive oil; a white-wine pan sauce was thickened with a slurry of cornstarch and chicken stock and finished with chopped herbs, ready to accompany the already-stuffed and -roasted turkey breast McKee had brought with him for tasting purposes.

Jones let no task intimidate her. McKee deboned one side of the turkey breast, then handed over the job to his kitchen assistant du jour, who worked the other side slowly and carefully, making sure not to waste any breast meat.

Potter, 46, had passed the afternoon observing from the dining table just outside the kitchen, patiently waiting to make his pear dessert, which uses the fruit four ways: as a sorbet, a compote, a syrup and a garnish of fresh slices. Instead of sugar he used Whey Low, a 100 percent natural sugar substitute that contains a quarter of the calories and carbs of the real thing.

"It's void of glucose," Potter said. "Diabetics can use it because it has a much lower glycemic index than sugar." Better yet, it has the granular texture of sugar, is a one-to-one substitute and tastes and reacts in cooking as sugar does, Potter said. But the product is not widely available, and it costs more than $3 per pound (see Crushed Sweet Potatoes With Roasted Garlic and Ginger recipe, Page R10).

Jones marveled at his finished dessert: "The way the ice crystals are formed on the sorbet, it looks like a pear." Then she took a spoonful. "Oh. My. God!" she gushed -- a high accolade indeed, considering that it came from someone who keeps syringes on hand so she can inject strawberries with chocolate.

By the time McKee and Potter departed, they had given Jones the know-how to cook in a way that honors herself and her loved ones, present and gone. But was the message received? Jones still plans to serve a deep-fried turkey alongside McKee's version on Thanksgiving, and which one will take center stage on her plate is hard to say. After all, old eating habits, particularly Southern ones, die hard.

"You can give people the options," said McKee that day, "but they make the choices."

David Hagedorn, chef and former restaurateur, can be reached atfood@washpost.com.His Chef on Call column appears monthly.