Re: OT My turkey...


"Christina Websell" <spamfree@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:5r368vFukpklU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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



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