Let me preface this by saying that I'm typing this on the iPad and tend to think faster than my fingers move. There will be typos and probably a lot of "if" when I mean "of" and vice versa. Don't point out my errors and I won't correct your grammar in your Facebook posts.
It all started at work with a simple question: Do you want a turkey? Already cooked and its free.
Well of course I said yes. Who would say no? I should have said no.
So I got this big, smoked bird in a very large bag. It's beautiful and smells delicious. The whole building smelled like meat all day today. Anyway, so I've got this bird. I'm thinking to myself "this will be great....I'll go home, carve it like a pro, freeze it, and it'll be great for Christmas Eve." Psh! I'm an idiot!
So I picked Dave up from chemo at 2, dropped him and the turkey off at home (I put it in the oven for safe keeping because I pictured my bad fat cats dragging it through the house if I left it on the counter), then I went to Kroger to get a few things we needed...like pumpkin pie :)
Then I came home and went about my evening taking care of Dave and watching Gilmore Girls. Somewhere around 830, I remembered that damn bird sitting in my oven.
The first trick was getting it out of the bag and into a suitable holding device because, well, I have cats....and nobody wants a whole turkey just flopsing around on the counter or table. So I found a foil roasting pan with a plastic lid and attempted to get the thing out of the bag. (This is when the feline supervision started) The bag had handles...the stupid handle got stuck on one of the legs. The juice that was in the bag when I got it had congealed into some sort of gel that I'm guessing is about the same consistency as an aspic (Google it). I was already defeated and I hadn't even started.
I had, of course, asked mom what I was supposed to do with this thing; she offered very little help. Her exact words were "Well, I would take off and discard the skin. Breakfast off thighs and wings. I would then slice the breath meat." Of course, first you have to realize that mom didn't correct the autocorrect mistakes and she meant "break" and "breast". Ok, doesn't sound so bad. Ha!
This is what I learned about turkeys tonight:
The skin is very much attached to that sucker. The legs come off not at the hip joint, as instructed, but at the knee...so the thigh is still attached to the body and you've got a leg bone in your hand. Side note: in case you don't know me, I DETEST bones....the feel of them, the sight of them....yikes! Touching them makes my skin crawl....blech I'm all creepy-crawly just thinking about it. And the wings... Those little bastards are the devil. You can't pull them off. You can't twist them off without doing the crocodile death roll. And once you do get them off, you realize that you've only gotten off the wing, not the little drummy part that is, of course, still attached to the stupid bird.
I stopped at this juncture and had a piece of well-earned cake. I was worn out and the situation called for cake.
I picked as much meat off the legs that I could muster. The wings were utterly useless and I found no meat at all on those. Not that there wasn't meat...I'm sure there was, I just couldn't locate it. Then I took a knife to the breasts and did the best I could. When it was all said and done, I was sure I had only gotten off half of the viable turkey, but I was at a loss as to what to do next. I was just plain done with that little bugger. It's enough meat to freeze for Christmas, so it'll do!
I chucked the bird in the trash, the whole while my cats were eye-balling me. I could picture them saying "WHAT are you doing with that?! You're not going to throw that out without letting us have it first, are you?"
Why yes...yes I did, you bad fat cats!
I had, of course, asked mom what I was supposed to do with this thing; she offered very little help. Her exact words were "Well, I would take off and discard the skin. Breakfast off thighs and wings. I would then slice the breath meat." Of course, first you have to realize that mom didn't correct the autocorrect mistakes and she meant "break" and "breast". Ok, doesn't sound so bad. Ha!
This is what I learned about turkeys tonight:
The skin is very much attached to that sucker. The legs come off not at the hip joint, as instructed, but at the knee...so the thigh is still attached to the body and you've got a leg bone in your hand. Side note: in case you don't know me, I DETEST bones....the feel of them, the sight of them....yikes! Touching them makes my skin crawl....blech I'm all creepy-crawly just thinking about it. And the wings... Those little bastards are the devil. You can't pull them off. You can't twist them off without doing the crocodile death roll. And once you do get them off, you realize that you've only gotten off the wing, not the little drummy part that is, of course, still attached to the stupid bird.
I stopped at this juncture and had a piece of well-earned cake. I was worn out and the situation called for cake.
I picked as much meat off the legs that I could muster. The wings were utterly useless and I found no meat at all on those. Not that there wasn't meat...I'm sure there was, I just couldn't locate it. Then I took a knife to the breasts and did the best I could. When it was all said and done, I was sure I had only gotten off half of the viable turkey, but I was at a loss as to what to do next. I was just plain done with that little bugger. It's enough meat to freeze for Christmas, so it'll do!
I chucked the bird in the trash, the whole while my cats were eye-balling me. I could picture them saying "WHAT are you doing with that?! You're not going to throw that out without letting us have it first, are you?"
Why yes...yes I did, you bad fat cats!
Here's a picture of the turkey and one of my bad fat cats ( his name is Little Man).
(I tried, don't judge me!)
You write so well. I love you! Have you thought about short fictional stories?
ReplyDeleteThanks! Who needs fictional when real life is just as funny?! 💗
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