Thanksgiving: Feels Like the First Time

OK, i’ve never cooked a proper turkey. last year i visited the fam (and ate a WHOLE. PIE.) and the year before i made the instant fixin’s, but i’ve never stuck my hand inside a raw bird and then lovingly roasted it at low temperature until its skin was the colour of ... well, my skin.

until yesterday. yesterday i baked the little bird we bought on Sunday. i say little, because it was a 10 lb. turkey, and i have never seen smaller (despite seeing cooking instructions for 8 lb. turkeys). it was a frozen Butterball brand turkey. as it was my first, i spent three days freaking out about how to cook it, after i realized i don’t really know anything about it. sure, i’ve devoured my share of holiday fowl flesh, but since basting my mom’s creations as a tot i’ve not had much to do with their actual cooking.

after panicked calls and e-mails to my mother, and questions to just about everyone i knew who’d ever cooked a turkey, i felt confident that the website my mom sent me would help (yes, when i ask my mother for domestic advice, she sends me links). i had Pants take the turkey out Monday night for thawing in the fridge. Thursday morning i removed said bird and plopped it on the counter to prepare it for its inevitable fate. i am not squeamish about touching raw meat, so i cut open the package and laughed when i saw Butterball include directions with its turkeys -- so all i had to do was look in the package, instead of asking everyone and Google-ing like mad.

unfortunately, the bird was pretty solid. so solid, in fact, that the plastic bag containing the neck was still frozen in the cavity (forget “a few ice crystals” like i’d been warned about by my mom). but i’d already opened the turkey wrapper, so the uncovered bird was placed in the sink and water run over and into it in an attempt to thaw it out. i was sure this would dry the turkey, but better a dry, safe turkey than two food-poisoned diners. did i mention i don’t have a meat thermometer?

i managed to remove the neck bag, and proceeded to massage the turkey and submit it to its unplanned shower. once i thought it felt only reasonably cold, i started preparations.

cate’s turkey dressing:
approximately 1 cup homemade herbed butter (basil, rosemary, and parsley)
1 white onion, quartered
1/2 lemon
additional sprig of rosemary & basil leaf.

i did make butter by hand (no mixer!) for the turkey. it was actually more of a geek-fun thing to do, but i’d heard about rubbing turkeys with herbed butter so i thought, what the heck. after softening the butter, my fain assistant chopped up a boatload of herbs and i squished it all together with my own five digits, then lovingly caressed the turkey with the greasy, leafy mess. i started by lifting the skin on the breast and stuffing my hand in between, and soon discovered that the butter was more willing to stick to my hand than it was to the cold bird (even though i had patted it dry as instructed), so soon i was a buttery mess, using both hands to attempt to push butter into strategic crannies on the fowl. soon the buttering was done, inside and out (i stuck a glob of butter inside the chest cavity), and i moved on to stuffing a lemon half, chunks of onion and some more herbs inside the bird.

with that all done, i had also heard cooking the turkey upside down helps keep the breast moist, so it went upside down on a makeshift lift, just a ring of foil, in the disposable roasting pan. the foil, despite being heavy-duty, did not have the structural integrity required to hold ten pounds of dead poultry, so the ring collapsed on one side. i improvised a foil ball lift, and then decided i didn’t really care that the turkey was still touching the pan and uneven -- into the preheated oven it went, a tent of foil covering the carcass.

according to directions, a 10 lb. turkey takes 2 hr. 45 min. to 3 hrs. to cook at 325°. so the timer was set for 2 and a half hours. at this point, i imagined, i would lift the foil, and gaze at a nearly done bird just asking to be flipped for another half-hour of cooking so the breast could brown.

instead, i found a really, really, really undercooked turkey, with large portions still pink and translucent.

at this point i should mention that the night before, i attempted a chocolate pie for the first time. making a chocolate pie is simple. you make chocolate pudding and put it in a pie crust. i managed to forget that the crust should, oh, i don’t know, be BAKED BEFORE you put the pudding in it. it was so stupid, it made me cry. luckily, i have Pants, and Pants, being the wonderful man he is, went out and got a new BAKED crust and more pudding.

so the turkey was, well, nearly traumatic at this point for any sense of domesticity i may have had. the only reason i kept calm was that i had followed instructions! i had defrosted the bird for the recommended time! i had cooked it for the right time and temperature! it’s not my fault that the kitchen gods hate me!

i’d started turkey preparations early, and we had no set dinner time, so that was fortunate. i telepathically sent an abusive epithet to the Turkey That So Mocked Me and turned the oven up to 350°, then set the timer for an hour.

this bird was going to be cooked, even if it took two days.

during the turkey wait times, Pants and i constructed the sides of sweet potatoes and green bean casserole. on my next turkey-check, i discovered a MUCH more done-looking turkey, and used my clean silicone mitts to flip the bird breast-side up for a last half-hour of cooking. as the done turkey cooled, the sides were baked and stuffing and biscuits made.

then i started carving the turkey. i know nothing about how to carve a turkey, but at least i don’t feel bad about that -- the carcass ended up looking like it was part of a horror film about a killer who cuts people to death with a blunt Swiss Army knife. but upon the first slices of meat being sampled, i was shocked, pleased, and amazed -- the breast meat was incredibly tender and possibly the moistest turkey i have ever eaten, and Pants agreed. turkey triumph for the noob! all’s well that ends well, anyway.

and as i finished carving the turkey, i discovered a strange white tendon in the breast... and blood? ... and soft liver-coloured insides of -- oh crap, i left the bag of giblets in!