Gingery turkey burgers (or meatballs!) to love

Thank you ginger, herbs and - wait for it - mayo

Hello! Hello!

Those of you who’ve been with me for a while know that my mom barely, rarely, almost never cooked. She loved fashion, she loved fun and she loved food – at the spur of the moment she’d take me off for a sundae at Jahn’s ice cream parlor or clam chowder at one of the big seafood houses that Brooklyn used to be famous for. She had adventurous tastes and was up for any kind of food, as long as she didn’t have to cook it (I wrote about her one good recipe here). And when she did have to cook – I say “have to” because it always seemed like an obligation, never a joy – she cooked simple stuff, stuff that usually involved the broiler and always seemed to involve mayonnaise.

There must have been a moment when mayonnaise was considered a miracle food. (Wait! Is that why there’s a mayo called Miracle Whip?) Of course it was used as a sandwich spread and tuna salad was inconceivable without it, but my mom slathered it on everything, from chicken to fish to potatoes (thank goodness fo…