Turkey Time Tales

Here are three true stories. They have absolutely no relationship to athletic endeavors of any sort, but I thought you would find them amusing.

Betsi's Big Bird
My friend Betsi's husband Pete, and his good buddy Bobby, decided to raise turkeys this year - 10 of them. Mind you Pete and Betsi live in the suburbs, but Bobby lives someplace up in hills of Berne. He's not a farmer at all - works for the City of Albany - but apparently has enough land so that they could pull this off. Given Pete's lack of success deer hunting the past two years, I guess he figured this was a surer bet than trying to shoot one. Apparently they were successful, because a couple of days ago, Betsi was trying to give the turkeys away and asked us if we wanted one - a 25 pounder. We had no room in the freezer, and sadly had to turn her down.

I guess Pete and Bobby were really successful, because I heard today that Betsi cooked a 39 pounder! When asked how she got it into her oven she said, "I stuffed it in." Brings new meaning to "oven stuffer" for sure.

Speaking of stuffing, Betsi, who is an educator in the Health/Nutrition field, refuses to cook stuffing in a turkey, so she makes it on the side. This means that she took a 39 pound turkey and a full complement of stuffing to her mother-in-law's house for Thanksgiving, where they were feeding 13 people. On the other hand, her mother-in-law absolutely loves stuffing which has been cooked in the turkey. Solution? She cooked a 17 pound turkey at her house, and stuffed it, meaning 13 people, 56 pounds of turkey and two complete sides of stuffing.

And a final tidbit - Bobby's turkey? 47 pounds! I don't know what they did with their stuffing and I don't know what happened to the other 8 turkeys.


Gail's Cooking With Gas - Not!
My friend Gail had 8 people over for Thanksgiving this year - and her husband decided that this was the year they were going to deep fry the turkey in oil. He went out to K-Mart and bought a rig, and for good measure, consulted with their daughter's boyfriend Steve, who had a rig of his own and who had successfully deep fried a turkey before. Gail, being a cautious type - could be from working with me for the past 25 years of so - decided to cook a turkey breast in the oven, just in case.

Turned out to be a good move. No - they didn't burn the house down, or endure any other such catastrophe. Nope - quite the opposite. For reasons known only to the gods of cooking and things mechanical, it took them 4 hrs before they finally got the oil up to temperature - something stuck and by the time they got it unstuck it still didn't work because something else had been overheating for 4 hours, and they ran out of propane anyway. Boys and their toys.

I guess if it everything had gone correctly, the bird would have been cooked in less than an hour and been wonderful - or so they say. Gail says they had enough turkey breast to go around - but no leftovers.

She also says they had to leave the turkey in the rig until the next morning, when the oil was cooled down. When they took it out, it was 14 pounds of perfection - golden brown all over, just like in the TV ads. Yup, they had the best looking, best smelling trash in the entire neighborhood!

Is It Cold in Here? Ron Has a Brain Freeze
We had a good gathering Saturday, 10 people, very relaxed. As is usually the case for holidays, I did the core cooking - turkey breast (we down-sized this year for the smaller gathering) , Oscar's ham, creamed onions, mashed potatoes and stuffing, supplemented by appetizers, drinks and desserts from my friends and family. Everything tasted pretty good.

I usually make giblet gravy, too, but was thwarted because there were no giblets with the turkey breast - if you get the breast with the wing attached, it will usually come with a packet of giblets, but we couldn't find one of those this year. And, oh yes, there is one other reason. In wonderful type-A fashion I try to wash the pots and pans as I cook to maximize the space available and minimize the mess. This year I was so efficient that I took the turkey out of the oven, put it on the platter to set up, grabbed the pan with the turkey drippings, threw it into the sink, and scrubbed out every last speck of drippings before I realized I had just killed the gravy. I guess my family and guests knew something was wrong from the loud "Oh, sh**", and because my response to the cries of "What's wrong?" was "There will be no gravy!"

Since it was not the actual holiday, the Hannaford was open and we sent my sister and son out for bottled gravy. This created its own variation on a theme, because my sister - who believes there is never too much food- bought 5 jars, but not until my son, in his inimitable fashion, dropped a jar on the floor and smashed it, leading to a call on the P. A. "Wet clean-up on aisle 2". I felt bad for the poor kid who had to work on Thanksgiving and clean up that mess, because when I was 17, I worked in a Grand Union, and I was that kid.

All in all, a very minor blip on the radar, and an excellent day. Besides, we now have gist for years of family stories, at my expense. I just want to know how many more times I am going to have to listen to my friends and family screwing up there faces and bellowing, "There will be no gravy!"

Hope you and yours had a wonderful holiday, with memories and stories of your own. Share them with us if you are so inclined.