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November 22, 2006
Thanksgiving dinner
For my next trick, I will attempt to cook a Thanksgiving dinner. In order to prepare myself, I have been watching the food network 24/7.
"The first sign that I’d been unknowingly affected by cooking shows occurred on a Sunday morning when I realized I was talking to myself. I’d been making toast. “First, we cut our bread,” I whispered. “Do you know why?” I stopped what I was doing and looked up. “Let me tell you why.” It was eight-thirty. It was also Hour 25 of a seventy-two-hour commitment I’d made to watch continuous food television (sleeping only when the shows began repeating at midnight)."
I have a turkey thawing out in the sink, and I am going to get some cornbread going tonight for the stuffing. This is my first challenge. If I'm going so far as to make an actual turkey I can't roll with Stovetop.
The menu will be:
Turkey and gravy, Stuffing, Green beans (canned ones with cream of mushroom soup), Corn (can), Sweet potato pie (already bought it from the store.)
I am confident about everything that is pre-made or comes out of a can. If I can make cornbread without burning my apartment down the stuffing should be easy, so its pretty much the turkey and the gravy that have me worried. And the carving. And the fire.
I'll update as I go.
Update: Rachel Ray keeps saying "smashed potatoes," its really annoying.
Update, the cornbread situation: Done. No flour, just yellow cornmeal and salt and baking soda, and an egg and buttermilk. Tangy. Nice. I feel self-satisfied.
Update: (Thanksgiving day) Turkey is in. I chopped up a ridiculous amount of carrots and celery and onions and I put some inside and underneath to make a rack, and poured some chicken stock in the bottom of the pan. There's butter inside and under the skin and all over it, and salt and pepper. I bought a turkey baster, but Alton Brown said not to do that so I'm not going to do it. I peeked in just now (its been about an hour) and its starting to get brown, yay. I couldn't resist rebuttering it a little. I know I'm going to burn the crap out of it.
Update: The turkey came out perfectly, its a Thanksgiving miracle. I forgot to buy a meat thermometer so I had to guess a little about when to take it out but basically I just followed the directions that came with it. The skin is nice and brown and peppery and its crispy on both sides from the butter underneath and the whole thing is nice and juicy.
Carving was a debacle. The bone just pulled right out of one of the legs when I tried to cut through the joint and it looked like my turkey was smashed with a hammer on that side. I tried to take all the breast meat off in two big hunks instead of slicing it thin; this was a mistake. It looks easy on tv but I had trouble slicing down the bone the right way and in the end I kind of ripped the meat off instead of slicing it, but it did come off in two nice looking chunks and if you hadn't seen me actually doing it you'd think I was an expert. Discouraged, I just ripped the wings off with my hands, making no attempt to carve them.
The stuffing and especially the gravy: perfection. Everything was a LOT better than I expected. Now I'd like to go to Starbucks, I notice they've moved to the holiday red cups. I like those.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Posted by K