I did not get off to a good start. I pulled out all the ingredients, set them on the counter and whipped around at my usual high velocity..and knocked a dozen eggs to the floor. My kitchen floor is white marble. Transparent egg whites, especially at 0-dark-thirty, are near impossible to see. I did get it all cleaned up, but not before I walked through the sticky slimy mess and tracked in across the room on my way to the mop.
"Jeez," I thought to myself, "I hope this isn't an omen of how the day is going to go."
It wasn't, and the pies turned out perfect.
This year, we have a huge, HUGE, HUGE! turkey, weighing in at just over 24 lbs. This is not the biggest turkey I've cooked but it comes pretty darn close. Usually I make two different dressings, one in the 'fore' and the other in the 'aft,' but this year I'm making one, a cornbread and apple stuffing that's wonderful. (I cut the apples at just the right size so that there is a slight apple taste through the dressing and some really soft apples pieces throughout.)
I shove stuffing into the cavity. I don't spoon it in. I scrub my nails and hands and grab hold of it. This is this thing; I'm watching my hand with its little diamond chip on the pretty pink fingernail, go in and out of this big bird's ass end, and I'm thinking, "This is soooo me." And it is.
Would you like to see what a 24 lb stuffed bird looks like?
And to put it in perspective, here it is in the oven:
As you can see, it fills my oven. It'll cook for six hours.
I've used this lovely painted old turkey platter every year since I can remember:
Pretty, huh? And every year when i pull it out of storage, I know the holidays have truly begun.
There will be seven of us eating this turkey today. but, none of it will go to waste. in fact, I can promise you, it will be all gone by Monday. A lot of it will be taken up in a turkey tetrazzini that I'll make from scratch tomorrow. (It's a much anticipated tradition in my home.)
The next photo to show you, will be in a following post, and it will be a photo of the pretty platter with the finished product, all golden and juicy, on it. And I'll include the recipe of the tetrazzini.
Happy Thanksgiving, all. I'm so blessed with your friendship.
I'm a pretty good cook, have cooked in a cafe, but I've never baked a turkey. On the other hand I've never scattered a dozen eggs on the floor, well, one at a time would add up to a dozen I guess.
ReplyDeleteHum, dropped an egg, well, don't have time to deal with that shit, in an hour it will just be part of the floor polish. :-)
I've never made a pumpkin pie either, can I buy one in a box like a cake mix? I'm pretty sure that if I made a pumpkin pie that grandma would come out of her grave and beat the fuck out of me with a frozen turkey for doing such a shitty job.
Shoot, she could turn a piece of shit squash into a terrific pumpkin pie.
I'm a very early riser as a rule.
Very few times in my life have I ever used an alarm clock, not even when I was long haul trucking and working 20-22 hours days at times.
I was always the first one up in morning and after an hour or to too myself would take a cup of coffee into the bedroom to wake up the wifey. Hoping for a morner of course.
Nothing like a morner to get a mans day off to a good start and ready to tackle the world. She sure fucked up a lot of my starts. :-)
I'm wondering what the patch of tinfoil is on the turkey for. Did the mate take a liberty with it before you cooked it?
ReplyDeleteBilly your post got me laughing out loud! What as great way for me to start the day!
ReplyDeleteI add the tin foil to protect the exposed stuffing from getting too brown.