OT My turkey...

I would like your permission to send this "tale" to a couple of places that
collect "first time Turkey stories". Was this by any chance a Butterball
before it's rearrangement? I have already printed it out to take to work.
Ahhhh the stuff dreams and memories are made of.
"Joy" wrote in message
...
"Baha via CatKB.com" u18616@uwe wrote in message
news:7bce8d39234e3@uwe...
..was unarguably the ugliest thing I have ever in my life pulled out of
an
oven.

We began with The Brine. Louie put together a witches' brew of chicken
broth,
apple cider, honey, maple syrup, salt and ginger ale with spices, and
after
letting the SOB soak overnight we found he was not only well-thawed but
he
presented us with something disturbingly phallic-looking. This, I
discovered,
was the neck, though we found it in a place I never expected to find a
neck.
Although if the head were attached, it would have reminded me of the boss
I
had before Daniel. We then stuffed him with pieces of cut-up onion,
apple,
pear and herbs, plopped him into the pan and put enough water in there to
come an inch or so up the side, as my freind and long-time turkey chef
Olive
instructed. Of course, Olive never soaked a bird in brine and no one ever
warned us that there would be an overflow of juice and turkey fat that
would
start a fire in the oven.

And so, once the supply of baking soda was used up, the rest of the juice
drained into two half-gallon pitchers, and half our bath towel collection
ruined, we rearranged Old Tom for his final degradation. Lifting him from
the
pan to stick some vegetables in to bake with him, Tom's skin just
disintegrated. Literally peeled right off his nude flesh, leaving us
staring
at a bird with prison pallor. We couldn't even dress him up again
because,
like cheap clothing on a final clearance rack, it just broke up into
little
bits when it hit the hot juice. In an act of desperation we mixed up a
paste
of butter and herbs and smeared it on Tom's poor bare breast, waited for
the
vegetation to develop a sense of comletion in its life's work, and called
the
Mutha-in-Law. When she stopped laughing, and Louie told her that the bird
had
just dropped both a leg and a wing from the rest of its carcass, she told
us
that he was not only done, he was TOO done. And then there was this
little
paper bag that rolled out of his insides along with the fruits we stuffed
him
with. What do you know...so THOSE are giblets! Roasted with Tom all
along. It
was hard to tell he was ready for duty, however, because he looked as
naked
as the day he was hatched. It was too late, though. I had a throng of
hungry
buddies who were expecting to be given the bird; and the bird we gave
them.
We wrapped the monstrosity in foil and hoped for the best.

Fortunately Dennis had the implements to carve him, and the good sense to
do
it away from the eyes of our friends who might have looked over his
shoulder
and said, "Good GOD!!! What the hell IS that thing?" When we picked Tom
up
from the pan his butt was stuck to the metal and fell off. It looked
honestly
like something that was found by the roadside and rolled through a
recently-
cut lawn. But it was actually a good, flavorful turkey, though no
cover-boy
for Gourmet Magazine, and didn't turn out dry at all. We had enough to
send
everyone at the party leftovers in abundance; we were planning for
twenty,
but only half that number turned out. Usually Dennis hosts a good thirty
people every month. The most important thing was that we had a bunch of
happy
friends, none of whom ended up hospitalized.

To you good cooks here, I owe a debt of gratitude. (you especially,
Matthew,
you'd make some lucky bride out there a great chef, I mean husband!) To
my
boss Daniel, I plead: next year, get LITTLE turkeys!

Blessed be,
Baha

ROTFLOL! I assume this was the first turkey you ever cooked?

I've never heard of putting water in the pan with a roasting turkey.

Thanks for the laughs. I'm glad it turned out okay.

Joy

On the topic of holiday food...

We don't do Thankgiving here in Australia, so the time for over-doing the
cooking and the eating is Christmas.

Several Christmases ago (I think it was 2004) I had got a bulk deal on
corned beef. I had gotten a slow cooker the previous July and thought that I
could give a corened beef a go and it turne dout delicious. So much so that
when my mother said that instead of everyone bring enough food for 6 people
(6 people bringing enough food for 6 is *way* to much food!) that each
*family* just brings what they'd like for Christmas Lunch, and other peole
to want to 'swap' then all well and good, but you know tha ta) you'll get
something you can actualy eat and enjoy and b) there won't be an embrassing
amount of food left.

So, with the success of the first corned beef, I made two more for the
Christmas meal.

Everyone loved it and although there was left overs, there wasn't *that*
much left over!

For Christmas 2005, I made another, to the same amount of praise.

And last year, I thought I may as well follow tradition and do it again, and
got the same reception.

Except that my Dad shakes his head that out of all the fancy food that we
can now afford (he's a war baby) that the one cheap and unglamourous meat
that you could get on your food stamps when he was young is now considered a
"Christmas Delicacy" - although it doens't stop him from helping himself to
thirds!

Yowie

just because you are single is no reason to be mean about it... you know
the truth though, my DH is smart enough to not be bad enough for me to cook
for him, therefore he won't be going from this plane anytime soon... lucky
me and lucky for the cats... Lee snickering to herself
Granby wrote in message
...
Lee, behave yourself. Probably one good cook to a lifetime anyway!!!!
Besides...never mind!
"Stormmee" wrote in message
...
I have Mathew filed away for future reference, if I cook for DH and he
leaves this plane I will need another cook, to warm me up... I mean warm
my... I mean fill my belly with warm food, yes that's what I meant, Lee
Baha via CatKB.com u18616@uwe wrote in message
news:7bce8d39234e3@uwe...
..was unarguably the ugliest thing I have ever in my life pulled out of
an
oven.

We began with The Brine. Louie put together a witches' brew of chicken
broth,
apple cider, honey, maple syrup, salt and ginger ale with spices, and
after
letting the SOB soak overnight we found he was not only well-thawed but
he
presented us with something disturbingly phallic-looking. This, I
discovered,
was the neck, though we found it in a place I never expected to find a
neck.
Although if the head were attached, it would have reminded me of the
boss
I
had before Daniel. We then stuffed him with pieces of cut-up onion,
apple,
pear and herbs, plopped him into the pan and put enough water in there
to
come an inch or so up the side, as my freind and long-time turkey chef
Olive
instructed. Of course, Olive never soaked a bird in brine and no one
ever
warned us that there would be an overflow of juice and turkey fat that
would
start a fire in the oven.

And so, once the supply of baking soda was used up, the rest of the
juice
drained into two half-gallon pitchers, and half our bath towel
collection
ruined, we rearranged Old Tom for his final degradation. Lifting him
from
the
pan to stick some vegetables in to bake with him, Tom's skin just
disintegrated. Literally peeled right off his nude flesh, leaving us
staring
at a bird with prison pallor. We couldn't even dress him up again
because,
like cheap clothing on a final clearance rack, it just broke up into
little
bits when it hit the hot juice. In an act of desperation we mixed up a
paste
of butter and herbs and smeared it on Tom's poor bare breast, waited
for
the
vegetation to develop a sense of comletion in its life's work, and
called
the
Mutha-in-Law. When she stopped laughing, and Louie told her that the
bird
had
just dropped both a leg and a wing from the rest of its carcass, she
told
us
that he was not only done, he was TOO done. And then there was this
little
paper bag that rolled out of his insides along with the fruits we
stuffed
him
with. What do you know...so THOSE are giblets! Roasted with Tom all
along.
It
was hard to tell he was ready for duty, however, because he looked as
naked
as the day he was hatched. It was too late, though. I had a throng of
hungry
buddies who were expecting to be given the bird; and the bird we gave
them.
We wrapped the monstrosity in foil and hoped for the best.

Fortunately Dennis had the implements to carve him, and the good sense
to
do
it away from the eyes of our friends who might have looked over his
shoulder
and said, "Good GOD!!! What the hell IS that thing?" When we picked Tom
up
from the pan his butt was stuck to the metal and fell off. It looked
honestly
like something that was found by the roadside and rolled through a
recently-
cut lawn. But it was actually a good, flavorful turkey, though no
cover-boy
for Gourmet Magazine, and didn't turn out dry at all. We had enough to
send
everyone at the party leftovers in abundance; we were planning for
twenty,
but only half that number turned out. Usually Dennis hosts a good
thirty
people every month. The most important thing was that we had a bunch of
happy
friends, none of whom ended up hospitalized.

To you good cooks here, I owe a debt of gratitude. (you especially,
Matthew,
you'd make some lucky bride out there a great chef, I mean husband!) To
my
boss Daniel, I plead: next year, get LITTLE turkeys!

Blessed be,
Baha

--
Message posted via CatKB.com
http://www.catkb.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx...dotes/200711/1

"Baha via CatKB.com" u18616@uwe wrote in message news:7bce8d39234e3@uwe...
..was unarguably the ugliest thing I have ever in my life pulled out of an
oven.

snip

To you good cooks here, I owe a debt of gratitude. (you especially,
Matthew,
you'd make some lucky bride out there a great chef, I mean husband!) To my
boss Daniel, I plead: next year, get LITTLE turkeys!

My mother is not a good cook. She's not a good housekeeper either. She,
unfortuantley, was born with incredible brains in a time when the only
purpose for women was to cook, clean, and raise children. One thing my
mohter enforced in my sister and I was *not to waste our brains* (although
she didn't instill a great love of housework, oddly enough)

She has had many many disasters inthe kitchen, and even when she doens't,
the food is edible but not great. However, she's smart. Too smart, really.
And she is creative. And so when she 'experiments' and it fails, she doesn't
just throw it in the bin and order take-out, she adds even more weird stuff
and calls it something exotic.

For example, she had heard a good 'trick' for keeping the grated cheese one
sprinkles on spag bol free flowing and not sticky in the Aussie heat was to
lightly dust it with cornflour, so she tried it. The method worked, but the
cheese was oddly - but not unpleasantly - sweet. We questioned this oddly
sweet cheese, and Mum just smiled and said she had seen "Lithuanian Yak
Cheese" on special at the supermarket and decided to give it a go. Being
none-the-wiser, we ate it up.

What had actually happened is that she'd accidently dusted it with icing
sugar.

Mum was making a classic English meal - curry - and instead of just shaking
a bit of the powder out, the lid fell off and the whole jar of spice fell
in, making the sauce exceptionally hot. Not wanting to waste it, Mum then
dumped some sour cream into it to cool it down and called it "Burmese Beef".
It sorta tasted like a cross between Beef Stroganoff and Thai Yellow Curry,
and whilst I wouldnt' say it was a raging success, we managed to eat what
was put in front of us.

The list of culinary disasters and creative re-namings is incredibly long,
so I won't bore you with the rest, but that is what you get when you force
an incredible intellect to be a "mere" housewife. :-)

Yowie

I firmly believe that there is a home making gene that I did NOT get, Lee
Yowie wrote in message
...
"Baha via CatKB.com" u18616@uwe wrote in message
news:7bce8d39234e3@uwe...
..was unarguably the ugliest thing I have ever in my life pulled out of
an
oven.

snip

To you good cooks here, I owe a debt of gratitude. (you especially,
Matthew,
you'd make some lucky bride out there a great chef, I mean husband!) To
my
boss Daniel, I plead: next year, get LITTLE turkeys!

My mother is not a good cook. She's not a good housekeeper either. She,
unfortuantley, was born with incredible brains in a time when the only
purpose for women was to cook, clean, and raise children. One thing my
mohter enforced in my sister and I was *not to waste our brains* (although
she didn't instill a great love of housework, oddly enough)

She has had many many disasters inthe kitchen, and even when she doens't,
the food is edible but not great. However, she's smart. Too smart, really.
And she is creative. And so when she 'experiments' and it fails, she
doesn't
just throw it in the bin and order take-out, she adds even more weird
stuff
and calls it something exotic.

For example, she had heard a good 'trick' for keeping the grated cheese
one
sprinkles on spag bol free flowing and not sticky in the Aussie heat was
to
lightly dust it with cornflour, so she tried it. The method worked, but
the
cheese was oddly - but not unpleasantly - sweet. We questioned this oddly
sweet cheese, and Mum just smiled and said she had seen "Lithuanian Yak
Cheese" on special at the supermarket and decided to give it a go. Being
none-the-wiser, we ate it up.

What had actually happened is that she'd accidently dusted it with icing
sugar.

Mum was making a classic English meal - curry - and instead of just
shaking
a bit of the powder out, the lid fell off and the whole jar of spice fell
in, making the sauce exceptionally hot. Not wanting to waste it, Mum then
dumped some sour cream into it to cool it down and called it "Burmese
Beef".
It sorta tasted like a cross between Beef Stroganoff and Thai Yellow
Curry,
and whilst I wouldnt' say it was a raging success, we managed to eat what
was put in front of us.

The list of culinary disasters and creative re-namings is incredibly long,
so I won't bore you with the rest, but that is what you get when you force
an incredible intellect to be a "mere" housewife. :-)

Yowie

This made me giggle out loud. Thank you, Baha, for posting this. So. so
funny.

I remember only too well the very first turkey *I* cooked. It was a
Christmas gift from my DH's employer, not too huge, around 13lbs IIRC. We
had recently bought our first home and I was very proud to be able to "do
Christmas Day lunch and all day-food until bedtime" for my mother and
brothers for the first time.
I took some good advice about how to cook him, and got up at 6 a.m. to put
him in the oven (lunch planned for around 1 pm.) Guests arrived about 12,
should have been easy-peasy, potatoes, veggies, sage and onion stuffing.
chipolatas etc, etc ready and waiting.
I took the turkey out of the oven and it was not cooked to tenderness. The
accompaniments were half-ready by then, so I put the turkey back in the oven
and turned the temperature up a bit. An hour later the $%&*" thing was
still not tender and everything else was ruined.

Bless her, my late mum was careful not to interfere with my first attempt at
being a brilliant housewife at Christmas. She hovered in the background
(hungry, no doubt ;-)) and only came forward when I burst into tears. "Let
me look at this bird," she said. So she did. "This bird is as old as
Methusaleh" she said. "It will never cook to tenderness, I suspect the boss
ran over an old pet turkey in a farmyard and gave it to you for a Christmas
present. Disgusting!"
So we sat and ate the overdone vegetables with turkey gravy and I cried
because I had wanted my first Christmas turkey for my family to be special.
My mum said it didn't matter. It did to me. She said it to make me feel
better because she knew how much "providing my first Christmas for my
family" meant.

When DH got back to work after Christmas he told his colleagues about the
turkey - because they had all had one as a generous gift.
They were all the same. Ancient, sinewy, could not be eaten and spoilt
everyone's Christmas. What a cheapskate employer to find some sort of
elderly turkeys from somewhere to give his employees as a Christmas bonus
(because we don't think we need to buy one ourselves then..)

Tweed
P.S. I still know his name..

On Nov 26, 3:55 pm, "Baha via CatKB.com" u18616@uwe wrote:
..was unarguably the ugliest thing I have ever in my life pulled out of an
oven.

We began with The Brine. Louie put together a witches' brew of chicken broth,
apple cider, honey, maple syrup, salt and ginger ale with spices, and after
letting the SOB soak overnight we found he was not only well-thawed but he
presented us with something disturbingly phallic-looking. This, I discovered,
was the neck, though we found it in a place I never expected to find a neck.
Although if the head were attached, it would have reminded me of the boss I
had before Daniel. We then stuffed him with pieces of cut-up onion, apple,
pear and herbs, plopped him into the pan and put enough water in there to
come an inch or so up the side, as my freind and long-time turkey chef Olive
instructed. Of course, Olive never soaked a bird in brine and no one ever
warned us that there would be an overflow of juice and turkey fat that would
start a fire in the oven.

And so, once the supply of baking soda was used up, the rest of the juice
drained into two half-gallon pitchers, and half our bath towel collection
ruined, we rearranged Old Tom for his final degradation. Lifting him from the
pan to stick some vegetables in to bake with him, Tom's skin just
disintegrated. Literally peeled right off his nude flesh, leaving us staring
at a bird with prison pallor. We couldn't even dress him up again because,
like cheap clothing on a final clearance rack, it just broke up into little
bits when it hit the hot juice. In an act of desperation we mixed up a paste
of butter and herbs and smeared it on Tom's poor bare breast, waited for the
vegetation to develop a sense of comletion in its life's work, and called the
Mutha-in-Law. When she stopped laughing, and Louie told her that the bird had
just dropped both a leg and a wing from the rest of its carcass, she told us
that he was not only done, he was TOO done. And then there was this little
paper bag that rolled out of his insides along with the fruits we stuffed him
with. What do you know...so THOSE are giblets! Roasted with Tom all along. It
was hard to tell he was ready for duty, however, because he looked as naked
as the day he was hatched. It was too late, though. I had a throng of hungry
buddies who were expecting to be given the bird; and the bird we gave them.
We wrapped the monstrosity in foil and hoped for the best.

Fortunately Dennis had the implements to carve him, and the good sense to do
it away from the eyes of our friends who might have looked over his shoulder
and said, "Good GOD!!! What the hell IS that thing?" When we picked Tom up
from the pan his butt was stuck to the metal and fell off. It looked honestly
like something that was found by the roadside and rolled through a recently-
cut lawn. But it was actually a good, flavorful turkey, though no cover-boy
for Gourmet Magazine, and didn't turn out dry at all. We had enough to send
everyone at the party leftovers in abundance; we were planning for twenty,
but only half that number turned out. Usually Dennis hosts a good thirty
people every month. The most important thing was that we had a bunch of happy
friends, none of whom ended up hospitalized.

To you good cooks here, I owe a debt of gratitude. (you especially, Matthew,
you'd make some lucky bride out there a great chef, I mean husband!) To my
boss Daniel, I plead: next year, get LITTLE turkeys!

Blessed be,
Baha

--
Message posted via CatKB.comhttp://www.catkb.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/cat-anecdotes/200711/1

Thanks for the smile

"Granby" wrote in message
...
This description of cooking a turkey has to be the funniest thing I have
read in YEARS!! You had, you cooked, you conquered, in the end that is
all that mattered. I have always wondered why they put the neck in the
turkeys........and the giblets where its head should be. After sixty plus
years I don't suppose I need to know.

That's where they put them because that is where they fit.

LOL..

Jo

"Christina Websell" wrote in message
...
This made me giggle out loud. Thank you, Baha, for posting this. So. so
funny.

I remember only too well the very first turkey *I* cooked. It was a
Christmas gift from my DH's employer, not too huge, around 13lbs IIRC. We
had recently bought our first home and I was very proud to be able to "do
Christmas Day lunch and all day-food until bedtime" for my mother and
brothers for the first time.
I took some good advice about how to cook him, and got up at 6 a.m. to put
him in the oven (lunch planned for around 1 pm.) Guests arrived about 12,
should have been easy-peasy, potatoes, veggies, sage and onion stuffing.
chipolatas etc, etc ready and waiting.
I took the turkey out of the oven and it was not cooked to tenderness.
The accompaniments were half-ready by then, so I put the turkey back in
the oven and turned the temperature up a bit. An hour later the $%&*"
thing was still not tender and everything else was ruined.

Bless her, my late mum was careful not to interfere with my first attempt
at being a brilliant housewife at Christmas. She hovered in the
background (hungry, no doubt ;-)) and only came forward when I burst into
tears. "Let me look at this bird," she said. So she did. "This bird is
as old as Methusaleh" she said. "It will never cook to tenderness, I
suspect the boss ran over an old pet turkey in a farmyard and gave it to
you for a Christmas present. Disgusting!"
So we sat and ate the overdone vegetables with turkey gravy and I cried
because I had wanted my first Christmas turkey for my family to be
special.
My mum said it didn't matter. It did to me. She said it to make me feel
better because she knew how much "providing my first Christmas for my
family" meant.

When DH got back to work after Christmas he told his colleagues about the
turkey - because they had all had one as a generous gift.
They were all the same. Ancient, sinewy, could not be eaten and spoilt
everyone's Christmas. What a cheapskate employer to find some sort of
elderly turkeys from somewhere to give his employees as a Christmas bonus
(because we don't think we need to buy one ourselves then..)

Tweed
P.S. I still know his name..



We were fortunate for years to get a huge turkey for Thanksgiving and
Christmas every year from Charlie's employer, the local Coors distributor.

The man's name was Ed Goethe, may he rest in peace. Not an easy man to work
for in his later years, but very generous when the mood struck. Much
earlier in his life he had raised turkeys, and he had very strong opinions
of what constituted a proper bird. He knew the owner of a relatively local
turkey farm that raised only the best for the finest hotels and gourmet
markets and restaurants. Raised outdoors in pens and fed the very best
until a few days before the holiday. He used to send one of the
refrigerated beer trucks to pick up a load of the freshly packaged birds a
couple of days before the holiday. Every one who worked for him got a
turkey.

My mouth still waters when I remember those lovely broadbreasted delights.
I don't think it would have been possible to cook one of them badly.

Jo

"Baha via CatKB.com" u18616@uwe wrote in message news:7bce8d39234e3@uwe...
..was unarguably the ugliest thing I have ever in my life pulled out of an
oven.

snip one heck of a funny story

To you good cooks here, I owe a debt of gratitude. (you especially,
Matthew,
you'd make some lucky bride out there a great chef, I mean husband!) To my
boss Daniel, I plead: next year, get LITTLE turkeys!

Blessed be,
Baha

--
Message posted via CatKB.com
http://www.catkb.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx...dotes/200711/1

Take heart Baha, even the very best cooks have disaster stories from the
first time they tried to make a fancy or important dinner. Thank you for
the laugh.

Hazel Az