Hot Browns

As I was doing my Thanksgiving menu planning this year, I stumbled across a thread on Chow.com. "What do you do with leftover turkey?" someone had inevitably asked.

"HOT BROWNS!" somebody else replied.

Because I am irresistibly attracted to the unfamiliar when it comes to food, I had to know more. What the heck is a Hot Brown? It sounds like a topic that might need to be covered by Savage Love, but it's really an old-school, open-faced turkey sandwich, drowned in cream sauce, topped with Parmesan, broiled, and bedecked with two slices of bacon crossed coat-of-arms style. (Could two slices of bacon become our family crest?)

It hails from the Brown Hotel in Kentucky, so I used their recipe to transform our boring turkey leftovers into heavy, creamy, super rich sandwiches that nobody really wanted because everyone was still full from the overindulgences of the previous night. My father in particular learned that eating a box of donuts and a Hot Brown before playing tennis and touch football all afternoon is not a recommended combination. Oh well. It's the holidays.