Nora had no delusions about being forever young—she famously felt bad about her neck, concealing it beneath turtlenecks and scarves (though, honestly, it was a perfectly pleasant neck to look at)—she remained forever curious, engaged, out on the prowl. That’s what was amazing about her. She never fell into that older person’s trap: that closed feedback loop of the same old friends, the same old war stories, the same old movies, the same old DVR’d programs, the same old recipes, the same old restaurants. In every sense, she stayed hungry.

But now you’re a Web pioneer. Is it different? Is it exciting in different ways, writing for the Web?

Well, I just think for a handful of websites, you can’t confuse what’s on the Web with journalism. You know, [Salon has] actual journalism and there are a few other places that do. But mostly everybody else is just feeding off the carcass of the New York Times.

Last question. I imagine you love Thanksgiving. What’s your go-to Thanksgiving dish?

You know, we’ve now aced the turkey.

Do you really like turkey?

I love turkey. I love it. In fact, I’m having turkey pangs right now, because it’s time for turkey. But you don’t ever have turkey from Oct. 1 to November something, because …

It might ruin it.

It might ruin it. But we’ve discovered the way to cook a turkey, which I’m going to bore you with. Which is you take the turkey and you salt and pepper it, and you can put Lowry’s seasoning salt on it if you want to, and you stick it in the pan at 450 and you do not do one thing to it. You don’t baste it, you don’t …

Do you cover it?

You might have to cover it at certain point. And you might have to drain some of the fat that comes off, but it’s all these years of endless basting for nothing, it turns out.

So your revelation is to do nothing.

Yes.