The Stupid Turkey Story
November, 1998
Boy, what a great Thanksgiving I had this year! Not only was I able to gorge myself on way too much turkey, I was also able to complete my two most cherished Thanksgiving traditions, one old, and one new. There are few events in life more important, meaningful, or pleasurable for me than eating freshly roasted turkey, but one of them is roasting the turkey itself, which is where the cherished Thanksgiving traditions come in.
First, I’d like to say that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. I don’t say this just because it involves the turkey – I can inflict that on the world whenever I please. No, the two major reasons why it’s my favorite holiday are that I get a four-day weekend, and I don’t have to buy stuff for anyone else, other than turkey.
If you’ve come to the conclusion that turkey is pretty important to me all by itself, you’d be right. I just love roasted fowl, and while turkey isn’t my favorite bird, it is probably less dangerous than other things I’ve tried cooking. In fact, the only threats that turkeys represent for me are the additional strain they place on my cardiovascular system, and the structural damage to my domicile, as related below. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
The older of the two Thanksgiving traditions was the ceremonial, and entirely unnecessary apology for the turkey being "just a little too dry." It wasn't, of course, but that's part of the fun. I have never understood where this tradition came from, but it has been present at virtually every Thanksgiving dinner I ever attended, and frankly, is a whole lot more entertaining than having to listen to everyone recite what they’re thankful for. And, while I assume that in the past, it was quite possible to desiccate a turkey with a kitchen oven, I find that modern technology has all but eliminated the problem for virtually everyone but the food snobs, who’ll probably just complain whether or not the cook apologizes.
See, I went and bought the finest that modern science has to offer. I got myself a 21.5 lb. frozen Butterball. Now, I know this isn't up to snuff for all you free-range foodie snobs, but this is how my mother always made turkey, which is just perfect in my book.
Actually, I quite expect my mother to call me up any minute now to tell me she wouldn’t be caught dead stuffing a Butterball into her oven, but my mother just enjoys trying to make me think I’m crazy. Mom, I don’t need your help.
A 21.5-pound frozen turkey is a considerable thing to be slinging around the kitchen. It is heavier than my two cats combined, a fact that was not lost on them. They saw me lugging in this Volkswagen sized brick into the kitchen, and immediately set about trying to chew through the bag and wrapper.
I started the thawing Wednesday night, which meant cleaning some dirty dishes first, so I could find enough space in the sink to start the thaw. It also meant scrubbing all the stains out of the 50 year old sink in my apartment, which involved some heavy duty industrial strength kitchen cleaners, which no doubt is what imparted that pleasant, musky chlorine flavor to the finished turkey.
The other bit of cleaning I needed to do stemmed from the fact that the oven hasn't been used in years – I cooked my Thanksgiving turkey at a friend's house last year – and definitely not since they fixed my range/oven, which made all manner of disconcerting sizzling, popping and humming noises the last time I tried to use it. I took it on faith that they really did fix the oven, although their fix resulted in the dial pointing at 250 degrees when the oven was turned off. This meant having to guess at what setting 350 degrees would be.
What I didn't have to guess at was the fact that unless the oven received some cleaning, we were going to have smoked turkey. So, I decided to see what the oven would do if it were turned on to what I was guessing was 350 degrees.
Smoke. That's what it'd do. Lots of smoke.
After some loud noises that scared the cats, I took the smoke detector off the living room wall and moved it to the bathroom.
I went back to the kitchen, and found that the oven had a bunch of accumulated muck in it, which was just starting to "thaw" when heated to 350 degrees. I took a metal spatula, which I declared to be disposable for the occasion, and set about scraping the stuff out of the oven. Some of it hit the still-hot heating elements.
I could see that this would truly be my best Thanksgiving, ever.
After some more noise, I moved the smoke alarm to the bottom of the linen drawer, underneath some towels.
Groping my way back to the kitchen, I stopped to open the door and all the windows.
I scraped the crud out of the oven as best I could, and used some dish washing soap to sponge out the rest of the oven. I took a moment to stand back and admire my work. It also helped to stand back, just so I could breathe again.
It looked good. "Good" being a relative term, that is. Actually, it just looked better.
I turned the oven back on to what I thought might be 400 degrees (to give myself a little margin of safety), and went back to putting the turkey in the sink and starting a good cold-water flow over it.
I smelled smoke.
I looked over at the range, and the burner with the vent to the oven seemed to have turned into a smokestack. Being sort of curious, I went back to the oven opened the door, and was quickly reminded what happens when you add oxygen to something that's extremely hot.
The fire really did take care of the rest of the crud in the oven, as well as some of the stuff that’d caked up on top of the range. By the time I got things back under control, about all I had to do was sweep the ash out.
I went back to the bottom of the linen drawer, removed the batteries from the smoke detector, and on my way back through the living room, groped around until I found the floor fan.
The floor fan, being about 20 years old, produced as much smoke as the oven had.
Strangely, my cats were entirely absent for the entire evening.
Anyway, after getting the rest of the crud out, I discovered that I could heat the oven up to its full range without any smoke or bad smell or anything - assuming I could still smell anything.
I left the turkey in cold water, letting the faucet drip at a rate that compensated for the leak in the drain (actually, this is the default state for both the faucet and drain), and went to bed.
The next morning, I was up bright and early, setting about creating the Thanksgiving feast. My friend, the same person who is inexplicably still my friend, even though I cooked Thanksgiving dinner at her house last year, dropped by just as I was getting ready to put the turkey in the oven. After convincing her that I really didn’t have a fire place in need of cleaning, I showed her to the kitchen, and pointed out the little problem I was having with the temperature control on my oven. She removed the knob, and replaced it so that the little arrow pointed to "off" when the oven was turned off.
I feel blessed to have friends who have such a knack for fixing things.
What I wasn’t blessed with was a roll of aluminum foil for the little tent that goes over the turkey. Fearing that I'd end up with a crunchy turkey breast accompanied by sincere apologies for a turkey that really was too dry, I decided to take the recommendation of a food snob that I know, and cook the turkey upside-down for the first few hours.
People who know and understand me will recall how successful this strategy has been for me in the past.
So, I put the turkey in the oven, set on an indicated 350 degrees rather than the previous 550, and sat down to chat with my friend, who'd just left work. She works third shift.
We talked for a while, then she decided she had to take a nap, which is both part of her holiday tradition, and necessary given that she was going to have to go back to work again at midnight.
I busied myself in the kitchen making the stuffing, cranberry sauce, etc. I like lots of strange stuff in my stuffing, so preparing it actually takes quite a long time.
After the turkey had been roasting a few hours, I decided that it'd be a good time to turn the turkey over. Now, it was only because of my near-delirious state over it being Thanksgiving that I hadn't thought of this before, but when I put that turkey in the oven upside down, with the intention of turning it later, I hadn't stopped to realize that the act of turning over a 21.5 lb. turkey in mid-roast might present a bit of a logistical problem. In fact, I’d already discovered that doing virtually anything involving lifting a 21.5 lb. turkey under any conditions presented a bit of a logistical problem. The difference was that this one had an exterior temperature of about 300 degrees.
I slid the oven rack out so that the turkey and roasting pan (a cheap disposable aluminum job purchased for the occasion, because I don't have anything big enough to roast a 21.5 lb. bird in) were essentially sitting on the open oven door. I stood and looked at the turkey and decided what I really needed were a pair of those little fork-things you use to eat corn on the cob, only much, much bigger.
Except that I didn't have anything like that. I stood and thought about it some more, and marveled over how nicely the bottom was browning. Eventually, I took a honking big, sturdy serving spoon (to stick in the body cavity) and a huge wad of paper towels, and picked the turkey up. That worked ok, but I soon realized that I didn't have any hands left to rotate the turkey before setting it back down. I also realized that setting the turkey back down was something that was going to happen very soon.
I set it back in the pan and thought again. Soon, I had devised a cunning plan. I realized that I wouldn’t actually have to lift the whole turkey. Using the big honking spoon, I tipped the turkey up on one end, and using the other hand (protected by the big wad of paper towels), I rotated the turkey, then set it back down. The idea worked magnificently.
On the second try.
On the first try, I lost my grip and the turkey fell back into the roasting pan. Actually, it splashed back into the roasting pan. Hard.
This is a familiar state of affairs to me. As I watched the turkey tip over, as if in slow motion, I asked myself whether I still had the address of the doctor that treated all my goose burns. But, by some quirk of physics, the touchdown sent all the splash by-products into the back of the oven and not onto me.
Did I mention that Butterball is one of those companies that pre-moisturizes their turkeys by injecting them with broth and fat? Largely fat, judging from the results.
The broth didn't seem to be a problem, but when the fat hit the still-hot heating elements in the oven, the second of my holiday traditions was fulfilled.
Last year, while at my friend's house, my cranberry sauce accidentally boiled over and caught her range on fire. I remember that at the time, she had a satisfyingly animated reaction to the event. Unfortunately, she wasn’t witness to this year’s enactment of the tradition, as she was still napping.
This time, the flames reached up out of the oven, perhaps halfway to the ceiling.
Fortunately, at that burn rate, it didn't take too long for it to burn itself out. The cats just sat in the doorway, wondering why I kept trying to start a campfire inside the house.
I successfully turned the turkey the second time. Later, when my friend asked where that piquant hint of smoky flavoring came from, and whether it was in any way associated with the coughing fit she'd had in her sleep, I merely replied that it was just part of a Thanksgiving family tradition. Not that my mother would ever let this sort of thing happen in her kitchen, but she’s just no fun sometimes.
This was the most special of all Thanksgivings for me. The rest of the cooking was quite successful, if we momentarily ignore the little bit of turkey soccer we played when I tried to move the bird to a carving tray. All of the side dishes came out just fine, and the cats went into a frenzy over all the things to be mooched.
I offered my ceremonial apologies for the turkey being a bit dry, and fibbed a bit about the origins of the blackening that covered half of the turkey. Chewing contentedly, my friend reassured me that it was just fine. She also told me that she didn’t really like turkey very much, and that she’d eaten a lot at the office before coming over.
Anyone want to come over for leftovers?
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