Survival of the Fowlest

My Thanksgiving 2008 was almost destroyed by a small 12-pound turkey.  It brought me to my knees; it brought tears to my eyes; it almost sent me to bed.

All week I knew I needed to get a cheap frozen turkey and start thawing it by putting it in the fridge for a good three days.  But this is the land of post-Katrina procrastination, and Monday and Tuesday passed and I was just too damn busy or exhausted to get the damn turkey.  So Wednesday morning on my way to work I put a cooler in the car, bought the turkey and other provisions, and headed to the office, figuring the turkey could spend the day in the back of my Trailblazer relaxing in his styrofoam cell. (I left the lid loose so he could have some ventilation.)  Got home around 4:00 p.m. and put Mr. Turkey in the fridge, thinking he’d had a nice head start after the day in the Trailblazer.  Woke up at midnight thirsty and put the still-disappointingly hard turkey in the pre-cleaned sink full of cold water to continue thawing ’til morn.  3:00 a.m., bathroom break, noticed all water had drained out, refilled.  By 7:30 a.m., I had that miserable bastard thawed about 75%, and needed to get his neck out of the chest cavity to finalize the process from the inside.

This is where my delay in preparation began to sharpen its fangs.  I reached into the chest cavity and got hold of the cold, greasy turkey neck, and began to pull.  Thus began a wrestling match, as the neck was caught deep in the mostly frozen chest cavity.  The devil of it was, it always seemed to be on the verge of coming free — a truly delusional feeling.  And so I pulled.  And I twisted.  And I cursed.  And I sweated. (Repeat the foregoing for like 10 minutes.)  All the while water was running into the cavity, mind you, as I’m trying to thaw it from the inside out.  Well, when that neck finally came out, it came out with a pop!  Right in my face, full of water and deadly turkey juice and bacteria!  And a goodly spray all over the kitchen!  MASS CONTAMINATION with turkey blood and juice!  Much cursing of myself and the turkey and whatever devil stuffed that neck so far into that cavity like a booby trap from hell.

By now, my entire right hand was frozen, and my right arm was twitching from pulling and twisting and wrenching on that misbegotten neck for 15 minutes.  As I went to complete my rinsing of the jolly Mr. Turkey, I accidentally pressed his already damaged breast up against the faucet head, causing an amazing 360 degree spray of, you guessed it, ATOMIZED TURKEY BLOOD/JUICE bacteria media all over me and my kitchen!  We’re all gonna die because I couldn’t buy a turkey on Monday!  My kitchen was now a bacteria wonderland!  My self esteem: 0; turkey, 10.

Well, the turkey and I took a rest, both of us seeking a more moderate temperature.  After a while, I gave him a good rub down with olive oil (he still laughing) and sprinkled him with Tony Chachere’s cajun seasoning, further spreading contamination of turkey juice, olive oil, and seasoning all over myself and the kitchen and the bird.  Then I popped him into a hot 425 degree over, using my mother’s method of searing the outside to hold in more juice.  After that I reduced the heat to 350 and started pouring cheap wine over the high points of the turkey every half hour.  Things were looking better . . . for the moment.

Having been terrified by TV shows about poultry cross-contamination, I mixed up a solution of floor cleaner and bleach, and began wiping down my entire kitchen with this mix — including my oven door handrail, which, unbeknownst to me, pushed the temp knob to . . . 450.  Right then, being the red-blooded, red-state guy I am, I called Mom to wish her a happy Thanksgiving (and to seek sympathy for my travails) . . . and headed way up to the other end of the house.

I had a nice long chat with Mom, then proceed back toward the kitchen, only to be greeted by (1) clouds of dense blue smoke; and (2) the sound of vigorous crazed loud sizzling emanating from the oven (along with the smoke).  OH #*@&!!!! Instead of roasting quietly at 325 or 350, my turkey had been in a 450 degree CRUCIBLE for almost 30 minutes!!!  OH &@*#!!! I turned off the oven, threw open doors and windows, turned on my new central air-conditioning system, and even turned on the old window unit (all on full blast “exhaust”).  I dumped water in the roasting pan, which had been boiled free of all wine and other liquid except burnt, black, smoking turkey fat.  The turkey itself looked like it had witnessed a small nuclear explosion — not totally black, but a very nice shade of the deepest brown, with the skin pulled taught.  The automatic popup temperature sensor looked like it popped halfway up and died, like a soldier from the trenches in the Muse-Argonne offensive.  The turkey nominally had about an hour to go, but the cooking schedule had not survived first contact with the enemy. And is that a siren I hear?

Well, you can imagine my self esteem at this point.  I was concerned whether the smoke smell would permanently remain.  I had ruined my kitchen, my house, my turkey, my roasting pan, my oven, and, let’s face it, my life.   The neighbors were doubtlessly laughing and taking bets on whether this is a covered insurance claim as the smoke billowed out every orifice of the turkey and my house.

After things stabilized, I put the much-abused turkey back in the oven and turned it up to 350 to give it like 45 minutes, trying to compensate for the double-flash pyroclastic volcanic torture it had been through.

Well, it was then time to leave for the “official” T’Giving dinner at my ex-inlaws, so I left the turkey on the stove top where he could survey the spoils of war. When I got back five hours later, I saw that not very far below his charred skin was . . . pink.  Okay, so he wasn’t really done.  I fired up the oven and put the no-doubt bacteria laden turkey back in for an hour, along with some potatoes.

In the end, the turkey was not that bad.  The juices from the pan tasted like soy sauce, which must be made by burning soy.  I made some stove top stuffing.  I made turkey-and-stuffing burritos.

The dinner at my ex-inlaws might better be called “Ranks-Giving” as it seemed to consist of people getting ranked and no one particularly thankful for anything.  Left-handed compliments and snide, cynical, sarcastic expressions of faux-gratitude were the order of the day.  Nobody expressed gratitude for me, or for our new President and all the hope and “yes we can” good stuff he’s gonna bring us.  Their turkey was fine, if somewhat boring.

But in the end, I had a feeling of real gratitude for the one thing that is left to us now and my only accomplishment of the day – SURVIVAL.

I survived my evil 12 lb. turkey and my own fantastic incompetence.  Perhaps I can survive Christmas; perhaps I can survive  . . . Obama . . . and for that, that slim, dicey possibility, I am truly grateful.