I was in charge of cooking the giant 25 pound turkey for our office Thanksgiving dinner. Our boss bought this giant behemoth of a frozen buzzard carcass over for me to prepare and I was so excited! What a perfect occasion for showcasing my culinary skills! I rapturously envisioned me in my Donna Reed apron and with my heels and pearls and my perfectly coiffed hair and my dazzling smile.....serving up slabs of succulent, moist golden brown turkey along side steaming dishes of sweet potatoes and greenbean cassarole whilst we all nod merrily and smile appreciatively....our mouths too full of delicious food to even speak. The radiant glow of perfection so blindingly perfect that Normal Rockwell himself calls us up..... and he begs to paint our company portrait!! O, the grandeur of it all!!!
My first task was defrosting the giant bird. It took up an entire shelf in my fridge. After 2 days, it was still pretty much a frozen lump of birdish-ice. I lugged it out of the fridge and into a bath in the sink. Alton Brown says to leave the water on at a slow trickle.....that's the trick to quick thawing, his smiling and all-knowing face assures me from the screen of "Good Eats!" So, into the sink with a slow trickle. For 4 hours. The sound of the running water made me have to go pee at least 10 times. After I figured the bird was thawed sufficiently, I completed his bath by rubbing vigorously under each wing.....you know, I don't want to eat any turkey with stinky pits. No dirtie-birdies for us!!
Then came the FUN part. I had to stick my hand up that turkey's bum in an attempt to yank out the gibblets and the neck that they had somehow thought to ram up there. Now....that got me to thinking. Talk about adding insult to injury!!! Poor bird!!! Not only is he brutally slaughtered....the final indignity is that after they chop his head off and rip out his entrails, they wrap up some of his own innards (including his heart and liver) and then they ram 'em right back up his bum and then pop his severed neck up in there............. like some kind of sick biological cork!!! Anyway. Maybe I think too much.
So.....I'm completely grossed out by the thought of sticking my entire hand up inside this gargantuan turkey carcass......but there I am....forearm deep....fishing around for the elusive bag of guts.....and I finally find them.....and they are adhered to the side of the turkey. With superglue. And duct tape. And razor wire. And 10 inch spikes. Okay. So, maybe they were just slick frozen to the inside of that turkey....but all I know is that no ammount of trickling water would pry them free. I stuck a giant spoon down in there to try to scoop them out. Then I stuck a sharp knife in there (in a blind cavity...I know, SMART, right???) Luckily, I realized I was more in danger of losing my own digits to the turkey cavity than I was of dislodging the gizzards. So I just let him soak a bit longer and then we had Turkey-Wrestle-Mania Part II. When those gizzards finally broke free and I was able to pull the bloody oozing packet out of that dead turkey.....I let out a blood-curdling scream of victory and held my trophy high up over my head as a symbol of triumph!!!!!! And then I realized that my soggy, bloody trophy was dripping turkey blood down my arm and I actually threw up a little bit in my mouth and the gizzard/gibblett packet went flying into the trashcan where it belonged.
Now, there are women....women with MUCH stronger stomachs that I, mind you....who take those gibblets and gizzards and hearts and livers and slice and dice and mince those organs and stir them into a gravy. Not this gal. My gravy was conspicuously gibblet-less. On purpose.
While my turkey was soaking in the sink-bath.....I mixed up a bath of Alton Brown's turkey brine! Kosher salt, brown sugar, ginger, allspice, peppercorns, vegetable stock.....all simmerered on the stove until all the solids dissolve....then mixed with ice water! This part of the recipe went just as expected. And Oh!!!!!!!! It smelled magical simmering on the stove and all was magical and rosey and my illusions of grandeur remained un-shattered...well, perhaps shaken a bit by the gibblet-grabbing, but un-shattered.
Then....I had to find something large enough to hold the bird and the brine. No bowl, no bucket we owned was large enough. I had to empty out the giant cooler on the back porch and we put the bird in the brine in there for a long winter's nap. That bird was so heavy, I didn't even have to weight him down!! He sunk right to the bottom!! I poured the brine in and iced it up good....and it looked nothing less than putrid and disgusting! Even Steve came out and looked at my brining bird and said, "That water looks bloody!" It wasn't. It was just a combination of the broth and the brown-sugar and peppercorns and spices.....but it really did look like we were stashing severed body parts on our back porch. It was almost funny. Almost. I left the turkey to brine for 24 hours.
The day I had to cook the turkey.......I ended up working about 16 hours. I was so tired that I could barely move. That evening, I went out to check on the turkey and lo and behold.....all the ice in the brine was still frozen solid and stuck to the outside of my turkey!!! Now....I have mentioned that the turkey is HUGE and very HEAVY. I tried to figure out a way to get the turkey out of the cooler and into my kitchen. I finally decided I was going to have to load it up on the broiler pan and pray for the best. 20 minutes and 2 frozen hands later....I managed to fish the bird out of the brine and get him onto the broiler pan and chip away some of the ice. I half carried, half lugged and almost drug the turkey inside to the kitchen sink, where I hoisted it back into the sink for a rinse. I got him finally cleaned up again and patted dry with paper towels and got him situated on the broiler pan.
I stuffed his cavity with what Alton Brown calls "The Aromatics"......which is just a fancy way to say the stuff that's gonna give him some flavoring from the inside out whilst he cooks. I chopped up a pear (Alton's recipe called for an apple, but I'd used the last of my apple in my Rachael Ray Stuffing recipe), an onion, a few sprigs of fresh rosemary that I chopped off my bush outside.....some cinnamon and other spices and I just crammed that bird full of "The Aromatics."
Then came the FUN part! I got some butter in a bowl and I washed my hands good and then like a gleeful child....I dug my hands into that butter and squeezed it all around my hands and fingers and then I began massaging my turkey all over with butter! About half way through my very thorough massage, I started to imagine that this is what my masseuse at Massage Envy must feel like every month when I got in for my massage!! Which kindda took away the glee for a minute....but then I pushed that image out of my mind and reminded myself that I was finger painting with BUTTER!!!! And I mentally thumbed my nose at Paula Dean and laughed maniacally...and the glee and joy was back! Every square centimeter of my bird got the butter treatment. Then I spent 30 minutes trying to wash the butter off my hands.
I made a foil tent for my bird. A foil tent is a tricky thing. You want it to tent over the bird, but not necessarily touch the bird......you want it to be tight enough to stay on and provide protection from burning...but not so tight as to cause uneven browning. I experimented and rearranged my foil about 10 times until I was just SURE it was perfectly tented....and then I tried to lift the turkey...full of "The Aromatics" and with tent in place into my preheated oven. I couldn't lift it!!! That thing weighed a million pounds!!!! By this time, I have worn myself out with all the gleeful butter-rubbing and tinfoil tenting and cooking dinner for my husband and making a double batch of stuffing and a cheesecake for tomorrow's lunch....and just about every single dish in my entire kitchen was dirty and piled up on the counter....and I was just exhausted. So I called my husband in to put the turkey in the oven.
And then I went online to research how long my turkey needed to cook. Well....it just depends. Most every website said, "Until the internal temperature is at least 160 degrees." Well, HOW the heck long is THAT???? Turns out....it's exactly 8 hours. From 8pm that night until about 5am the next morning....I had to tend my turkey......all the while I was praying it didn't over-cook and dry-up while I was sleeping. Let me tell you.....you sure do tend to have crazy dreams while you're cooking turkey. I don't know if it's the L-Trytophan that becomes airborne and invades your brain cells or what. But I sure did have some Lu-Lu dreams. Have you ever dreamed a very vivid dream that you did something heinous during your dream......only to wake up feeling VERY guilty and very irritable? Yeah. I'm blaming the turkey.
Anyway......I got the turkey baked by morning. I had already planned on working from home a while and then going into the office just before the lunch so that everything would still be hot when we ate our lunch. I didn't even put the stuffing in to bake until 8:30am. It turned out just fine. While I was working on the couch, my cheesecake was cooled in the fridge and my stuffing was baking...then I made the turkey gravy.
My turkey gravy was made with pan drippings....but NO gibblets. I mixed my flour and made my roux and then whisked like my life depended on it. My gravy thickened....with only a few lumps! I whisked and whisked...but finally ended up using a strainer to get the lumpy bits out. The gravy was golden brown and delicious! Whew!!! I had a pretty cheesecake, a nice double batch of stuffing and about a half gallon of golden turkey gravy! Now....for the main event!! I took the turkey from the broiler pan and put him on the serving platter. He just barely fit....wings hanging over each side. Even all baked up, he was still one magnificently huge bird!! He was slippery!!! But he made the trip from the broiler pan to the platter without mishap. WHEW!!! Another step under my belt! Almost down the homestretch!!! I covered my bird with tinfoil (with careful tenting so as not to mar his beautifully golden tan skin!) to keep him warm.
I ran back into my bedroom to put on my hose, pants and heels.....and I decided to dress up a bit in honor of our special dinner and Thanksgiving...so I chose a black shirt and a black and maroon silk floral jacket with tiny bead work on the front. I did my make-up and felt kindda pretty for a change! I came back in to load up the truck and head on out to work. First out, my cheesecake.....carefully balanced....tented foil again, to avoid all the cherries sticking to the foil and taking away from the aesthetic beauty of my culinary creation!!
And then I decided I'd take the turkey next.....get him situated next because he was so big.....so I picked up the platter....and turned around and SWOOSH....about a gallon of hot-turkey drippings gushed out of the bottom of my tinfoil tented platter and into my pants, shoes, all down my jacket, my hose...and all over my hardwood floors and splatters went up my walls, my fridge, my oven doors, the pantry..........and I just froze for a minute....then I realized that the drippings were HOT...so I tried to kick my shoes off.....and my foot slipped (in my greased up stockings now....) and my legs flew out from under me....the turkey flew up in the air.....but luckily, I was able to catch it on the way down, saving it from the floor and sure ruin.......and the only damage the turkey sustained was that when I caught him, the skin on the top.....the beautiful golden tan skin that I'd buttered, massaged, tented and babied so much...ripped right back.....like a big ugly sore.
I landed on my right hip in the middle of a giant grease puddle. I slid around a few times trying to get up without dropping my turkey and I finally managed to get on all fours and get over to the counter, where I could sort of pull myself up to survey the damage. I cannot begin to describe to you the scene. Turkey grease dripping from almost every visible surface.....pooling and congealing on the floor. My pants, silk jacket and shirt were soaked. My shoes were full. My toes were squishing around in my greasy pantyhose. Everything RUINED. In the back of my mind, I promise you I heard a sound like when the game is over in Pac-Man. I peeled off my hot, greasy, wet pants, hose, shirt, jacket and just left them in a pile. I ran out to the garage (in my underwear, no less!) and grabbed a mop and 2 rolls of paper towels. I sopped up what I could with the paper towels, then made a solution of hot soapy water with Dawn detergent (thinking about the commercial, "It gets the grease out!") and I mopped 3 times.....but it was still slick. I ran into the bathroom and took another quick shower......but I was able to skip moisturizing this time!! Hey! At least there was ONE good outcome, right?? And I threw on some clothes that I didn't even have time to iron. I had 25 minutes to make it to my office and get everything carried in. I put the turkey back on the broiler pan, cleaned up the platter, put the turkey back on the platter and re-foil tented him again (although he wasn't nearly as pretty as he was the first time). I very gingerly hefted his bulk out to the car and cried all the way on the drive in to work.
It turned out that the turkey was carved and no one was the wiser.......the turkey still tasted like turkey. The gravy was good...the stuffing was okay. No....I wasn't wearing hose, heels and pearls like I'd planned.....and no....Norman Rockwell did NOT call and beg to paint our company portrait....but we did share a meal as friends and we were thankful to have jobs, to be of service to others and we were thankful for all our blessings. I not only had a bite of cheesecake for dessert, I had a slice of humble pie as well. My illusions of grandeur were shattered.....for sure. And today, I have limped around on a very sore and bruised hip.......but make no mistake.....I am very thankful, for I am very blessed. Blessings shaken, pressed down and overflowing. Overflowing like hot turkey drippings from a slick ceramic, tinfoil tented platter!!!
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