Thanksgiving: turkeys everywhere

This had to be the most turkey-rific Thanksgiving I have ever spent. C. and I had no idea that when we agreed to spend Thanksgiving with my family, we'd visit not only the Land of Pies, but also Turkeytown.

When I talked to my married brother earlier in the week, before we left, he mentioned that he and my dad would be frying a turkey for Thanksgiving at my sister's house. I thought that would be nice for C., who has never eaten fried turkey in his life and had expressed some curiosity on that point ... and my sister confirmed that she was also baking a ham in case anyone didn't like fried turkey.

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving was kind of a down-time day for us, at least in the morning. C. worked on the Holidailies code (which he has really slaved over this year, and I'm sure you noticed the improvements), and I was asked to whip up a freelance article in a hurry. The freelance article turned out to be fun because I asked various family members to brainstorm recommendations for me -- instead of the popular "dysfunctional families in film" topic, which I'd written about several years ago, we came up with a list of non-dysfunctional families in the movies. Let me tell you, it's a lot harder to find interesting yet not screwed-up families in films than it is to find the crazy ones.

After lunch, my brother and his kids showed up for the turkey-frying extravaganza. I thought they were going to fry maybe two turkeys, or a turkey and a turkey breast. It turns out that they fried three turkeys: one for our Thanksgiving Day dinner, one for my brother to take to Florida for his Thanksgiving dinner (with the in-laws), and one for my grandfather to take to Baton Rouge for dinner with his brother's family. My brother was recommending a new way of frying the turkey -- instead of injecting it with Cajun seasonings (and probably MSG), they would fry bacon in the peanut oil first, to give it some flavor that would be passed on to the turkey.

I wasn't there for every single step of the process -- C. and I had to make a beignet-and-Scriptura run -- but I've got a few photos to give you an idea of what went on. Here are the three turkeys waiting for their turn in the vat of peanut oil:

The kids got restless during the turkey frying process, which went on longer than I would have guessed. I decided to take their pictures, and asked them to imitate turkeys. I know that sounds mean, but in my experience, kids do not normally like their photos taken unless they are doing something silly or unusual. So here you have my nephew and younger niece giving you the bird, so to speak:

At last, the third turkey was done, and here's a shot of my dad and brother lifting it out of the vat. My nephew is helping by shining a flashlight. I'm not sure why, but obviously this is mysterious men's work that is beyond my ken:

(Okay, I realized just now that the flashlight was necessary to read the meat thermometer.)

After the turkey was successfully lifted out of the vat, without anyone getting burned, my brother triumphantly brought it into the house to join its fellow Thanksgiving Day entrees:

Some of the turkey appeared at dinner that night, as a kind of sneak preview, along with the bacon that was fried in the oil beforehand. But one full turkey was reserved for our Thursday dinner, and I figured between that and the ham, we had more than enough meat for 11 people. However, I was mistaken.

I walked into my parents' kitchen on Thanksgiving morning and was immediately overcome by the smell of ... turkey. Roasting turkey. I peeked into the oven and a gigantic bird was browning nicely. Whose turkey was this? My mom walked in and let me know that we were also having roast turkey for dinner. I can understand that -- you can't make good gravy from fried turkey, as there are no drippings -- but such a giant beast? Apparently it was on sale.

C. and I were eating breakfast when my dad checked on the turkey and discovered that some of the juices were starting to leak out of the pan. Apparently this had happened the previous year, and whatever steps my parents took had caused the drippings to fly all over and my dad to get burned. When he first put the turkey in the oven, he had placed an extra pan under the bird this year to prevent that from happening ... which my mom had then removed when he left the room, for reasons that were never fully understood.

I saw my parents wrestling with the turkey in the oven and I knew it wasn't going to end well. C. slipped onto the porch with his laptop to do more Holidailies work, and I tried to finish my quiche with my back to the events in the oven. I heard a lot of cursing, some yelling, more loud cursing, the freezer door opening and ice cubes rattling, and some discussion about how to clean turkey drippings out of an oven. My dad successfully fried three turkeys in boiling oil without the slightest harm to himself, but he ended up with burns from whatever turkey shenanigans happened that morning in the oven. It could have been worse -- and the turkey suffered no damage whatsoever.

I figured if we were having two kinds of turkey, that must have meant my sister hadn't had time to fool with a ham. But when we got to her house, I was proven wrong again:

Finally, my sister and niece drew little turkey placecards for us, just in case we hadn't seen quite enough turkeys that day:

My only regret is that we didn't ask my mom to pack up some of the leftover turkey for us to put in our ice chest and take back home with us. Or the ham. Because I know there had to be leftovers.

Posted at December 8, 2008 08:01 PM