Tag Archives: turkey

Thanksgiving Post – A Recap AKA How to Not Cook a Turkey

As I told you, The Hubs and I bought this super-fancy infrared turkey fryer to cook a big 20lb bird for Thanksgiving. Long story short, it’s an awfully good thing that my mom cooked a turkey too, because the whole turkey fryer thing was a bit of a debacle. Here is a nice little story in pictures that will tell you all about it.

cleaning out the cavity
cleaning out the cavity

Touching raw meat is seriously creepy, and to prepare a store-bought turkey you have to clean the whole thing out…which means handling it.  Running the water up into the “cavity” of the bird was a little traumatic for me.  Probably even more traumatic for the boidy.

To make the boidy taste good, you have to use the spices
To make the boidy taste good, you have to use the spices
rubbed and spiced up...and still seriously creepy
rubbed and spiced up...and still seriously creepy
really?
really?
tg6
mostly assembled pieces...sha.
other pieces that are not much assembled
other pieces that are not much assembled
checking back with the instructions
checking back with the instructions
tg9
lucky I had help! Turkey cooker is assembled!

turkey in the cooker.  but that's not the end of the story...
turkey in the cooker. but that's not the end of the story...

There are no “after” pictures and I’ll tell you why.  The turkey took FOREVER to cook.  By the time dinner was over it was pitch black outside.  So dark, in fact, that we couldn’t read the meat thermometer while it was still stuck into the turkey.  So, we pulled out the thermometer and RAN over to the light to see if it was where it was supposed to be.  It was one degree off.  So, we picked up the turkey fryer, placed it into the bed of Hubs’s truck, carried it into the house, and then attempted to get the thing out of the inner cage.

Or, I should say, I attempted to get the thing out.  The little wings and legs were sticking out all willy nilly and I darn near sent the thing sliding across the room a few times.  I finally got it carved and onto a plate.

So then what happened?  How did it taste?  Good questions, all.  Nobody would eat it.  Because the meat thermometer had a dubious reading, and because the turkey rode open-aired in the back of the truck nobody would touch it.  I tasted a bit, and it was good, but it was a total waste of a 20 lb turkey.  So sad, I know.  It does help that the turkey was a gift.

At one point during the whole ordeal I was upset and ranting at The Hubs and accidentally pronounced “turkey” as “tourkey.”  That has been the takeaway from the experience.  I don’t think The Hubs has pronounced “turkey” regularly since then.

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T Minus Turkey

does this picture creep you out as much as it creeps me out?
does this picture creep you out as much as it creeps me out?

So, yesterdayDwight and I bought an infra-red turkey “fryer.”  It’s supposed to give you the same results as a traditional turkey fryer that you fill with oil, drop the turkey in, etcetera, but you don’t need oil, and it reportedly will not shoot the turkey eleventy hundred feet into the air, spraying hot oil all over the neighborhood pets.

The problem is that it is a 16 lb-capacity turkey “fryer” and the turkey that Jeff Dear bought for us is a twenty-pounder.  Undeterred, around noon today I will attempt to clean said turkey, and stuff it into the inadequately-sized turkey “fryer.”  Provided it doesn’t send my Dad into fits, I will attempt to record the progress with photographs.  Stay tuned, and Happy Turkey Day to all you gorgeous people.

creepy photo by atomicshark

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Expressions I Want to Bring Back

I don’t LOL, ROFL, LMAO or anything of the sort. I do, on occaision, SRWFS (smirk righteously while feeling superior), EMTBOCAHM (eat many tiny bags of chips and hate myself), and RMEWIFTCMFSTO (roll my eyes when I forget to change my Facebook status to “offline”). None of those are going to catch on, because they are long and clunky, and because you can’t pronounce them outloud. Although, I get pretty irked when I hear someone actually utter “LOL” aloud.

Anywhoo. There are tons of neato expressions that predate the computer/text messaging/IM/Facebook/Myspace phenomenon. I think we should concentrate on bringing them back. Here is a list of examples:

Calling someone “Turkey”. How I love this. Perhaps best used in the Jerry Reed song “She Got the Goldmine, I Got the Shaft”, “turkey” as a means of addressing someone has to be uttered in a certain way. You can’t drag out the “turkey” like “turrkeeyy”. It’s got to be staccato, like TURKey. TURK + EE. Practice it. Try it on your friends and loved ones.

Responding to the question “How are you?” with “Ducky”, or “Just Ducky”. As an adjective it means “fine”, or “excellent”. You can mean it, or you can say it sarcastically. Either way it’s fun to say and people don’t expect it, so that’s fun too. Incidentally, as a noun ducky means “someone’s favorite”. So you’re sort of implying subconciously that you’re a favorite of some kind, which makes people view you in a more positive light. Note: that last part is utter and total speculation and mostly bullshit.

“I am called…” You might notice that people from countries who speak English correctly (ie any English-speaking country besides the good old US of A) say this a lot more often. My good friend from Trinidad always tells stories about people saying stuff like “I had a friend called Ruth…” and it sounds really nice. Flip it and use it on yourself. You’ve got Instant Importance.

“Fixin’ to” It means that you’re getting ready to do something. “I’m fixin’ to wash the car”. It doesn’t mean like “fixing dinner”. You can be “fixin’ to fix dinner”, but you are not using it properly if you’re merely “fixing dinner’. Dig?

“Golly Gee” or “Golly Gee Whilickers” – People curse too much and too often. Instead of a good GD, or a F’in A, try on a “Golly Gee” for size. You can probably even get the right amount of sarcasm and viciousness into your voice that people will think you’re being edgy.

So that’s a good start. Try these on for size and see how much better you’ll feel.

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