Kemp Minifie
Executive Food Editor Emeritus, Gourmet
Kemp Minifie is a top-level food editor, writer, and recipe developer for premier national food and travel magazines, special interest publications, websites, and blogs. Minifie spent 32 years working in all aspects of food at Gourmet, as well as two years working on the Special Editions of Gourmet and gourmet.com. Minifie is a graduate of Ecole de Cuisine La Varenne in Paris and over the years has studied with Madhur Jaffrey, Nina Simonds, Diana Kennedy, Giuliano Bugialli, and Susana Trilling, to name a few.
Devil's Food Cake with Chocolate Spiderweb
In name alone, a devil's food cake is an obvious choice for a Halloween dessert. This one will far exceed your expectations of deep chocolaty naughtiness hidden under a fluff of espresso-tinged frosting. (If your trick-or-treaters are too young to embrace the slightly adult bitterness the coffee flavor adds, feel free to substitute a couple of teaspoons of good old vanilla extract.) Have some fun with a very tasty spiderweb—you'll want to eat it rather than shriek and brush it off.
Turkey Soup
A few fresh vegetables and a leftover turkey is all you'll need to create this phenomenal soup — perfect for cold nights and holiday nostalgia.
Grilled Whole Turkey
This is best done on a large gas grill fitted with a thermometer — it's more labor-intensive to keep a charcoal grill at a constant high heat. You'll need a disposable roasting pan large enough to fit the turkey on a V-rack.
