When we carribeans of indeterminate authenticity get together over a turkey roast, rhythm is the most important thing. The affair starts by naming great turkeys of the past — there was that great rotisserie turkey, or the time we used a syringe to inject butter under the skin. Time-space bopping along all the while. It’s a little past midnight when the recipe is pulled out, another of the greatest hits. “It says to apply the rub about a day ago.” Rhythm.

And since we’re not really in the Carribean and, shit, not really from there either, Antonio Carlos Jobim will be supplying the samba. The rum is Hatian though, and a set of claves sits on the kitchen table for when the rhythms dig in past all the clutter. In those moments — before and after the “jamaican jerk” rub is applied to the fowl — then maybe a click-click-click-click will go along with the kitchen sashay now famous in the Rivero household.

A Jamaican rum is pulled out for good measure, and the bird is left to marinate overnight.

For your next cool breeze: B. Smith’s Jamaican Jerk Turkey, as transcribed from television a couple of years ago:

1. Marinate the turkey — (Slather in olive oil and Vernon’s jerk sauce).
2. You puts the turkey in a 2 gallon ziploc bag (after cleaning and removing giblets).
3. You shwishes around, massages, in and out.
4. You reseal and leaves in the frig 24-48 hours.
5. Before cooking, you removes the seasoning with a damp cloth, inside and out.
6. Puts the turkey in a roasting pan with a rack and cover with 1/4 cup butter, coarse salt and pepper.
7. Put stock in the bottom of roasting pan.
8. Pre-heat at 500 , turn down to 350.
9. Cook until 185 degrees in thigh and 180 in breast (roughly 11 mins per pound).
10. Baste a lot — add stock to bottom of pan as needed.

Pictures to follow, perhaps. Rhythm, you know.