Chris and I are hosting Thanksgiving at our house for some friends, and I'm in charge of the turkey. I'm a little nervous, but I've put a fair amount of research into this, so I'm also confident. Conflicting emotions, yes, but they seem to get along OK.
I got us a free range bird, just to try it (if we don't like it, we don't have to get it again), and I researched even that to figure out whether the birds really were free range (meaning, they lived out doors for most of their lives), or just had a small door in their pen to look out of (which would also allow them to be called free range, as per FDA standards). As far as I can tell, the one I bought is the former. I wish I could say this decision was motivated by a desire to encourage the ethical treatment of turkeys, or care for the environment, or other good causes like that, but the real reason is that I heard that they taste way better. I'm certainly not against those those things, but I just wanted it to taste good.
This is my second turkey. My first was a huge behemoth turkey that I cooked for friends in Wisconsin. It was me, Chris, Emily, Roseanne, and about 20 foreign students, so not many of them knew what to expect a roasted turkey to taste like. I hadn't allowed the full week that I should have to let it defrost in the fridge, and most of thanksgiving morning was spent trying to defrost the darn thing with running water. And sleeping, as I was still recovering from a nasty cold (although I was well past being infectious). The turkey took about three hours longer to cook than expected, and one of our friends, a rather large, jolly, and tipsy Argentinian, kept busting into the kitchen with a crazy gleam in his eye saying he wanted the turkey NOW! I have no memory of how the turkey tasted...actually, I think I remember that I didn't eat anything because by the time it was done I just wanted to go home to bed, and in fact did just that...but this will surely go better. Right?
In addition to turkey, I'm making french bread rolls and roasted nuts. I'll give you a full report sometime this weekend. Cross your fingers!
4 comments:
That was such a behemoth! HA! I still have a photo. I love that photo (you are with it, to give the person scale).
I loved that thanksgiving and I'm trying to keep the thanksgiving for foreigners alive over here.
I'm sure you'll do fine. I have no idea how that tasted either. Do you remember doing the stuffing in a garbage bag??? You said 20, but I think we were close to 40 that year.
The stuffing-in-the-garbage bag trick is a family tried-and-true technique for making insane amounts of stuffing. :) Was it really 40? Acutally, I think you're right that it was way more than 20. Anyway, that was fun, wasn't it? How'd your Siberian pumpkin pie turn out?
I hope it turned out ok, KV! Uncle Greg did 2 smaller turkeys this year: a grilled one and a smoked one. They were both FANTASTIC
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