My employer gave everyone a turkey this year, for Thanksgiving. Which is a nice gesture… However, we received them last Tuesday and they were already partially thawed and oozing juices. And I didn’t much care for the oozing.
Since it wasn’t bowling ball-solid, like previous years, I didn’t really know what to do with the thing. I almost put it in the freezer at home, but something told me that might be a mistake. Frozen, sorta thawed, then frozen again? That’s probably not recommended, right?
What the hell, man? What am I, a food scientist? What should I do with this big bastard? It was the middle of the night when I brought it home, and everybody in the house was asleep, so I couldn’t even poll the audience. It was irritating me that a ball o’ poultry was complicating my life.
So, I just flung it into the basement fridge and told Toney it was there. I thought I was washing my hands of the deal, but it haunted me all week. I kept asking people at work, “What did you do with your turkey?” And I got a long list of conflicting answers.
Some people re-froze it, which caused others to howl in protest. Many put it in the fridge, like I did, but there was some skepticism about it lasting until Thanksgiving. Exactly! It wasn’t a full-blown obsession, mind you, but I nurtured a back-burner concern about that turkey, for a full week.
Until finally… Toney cooked it yesterday. She wasn’t worried about it, but I think some of my hemming and hawing rubbed off on her, and she decided she’d better shove it in the oven.
But now we’ve had turkey in the house since Tuesday, and a lot of it has already been consumed. We’ll need to supplement it with a turkey breast for tomorrow’s Fanksgiving feast, and it won’t really feel like a special treat. Ya know? We’ve been eating roasted turkey for days, and our holiday calibration has been thrown into disarray.
It was suggested that we get a ham for tomorrow, but I don’t like the sound of that. Thanksgiving is about turkey, and having ham would be almost like, oh I don’t know, moving the Houston Astros to the American League? The whole world might tip on its axis.
No, we’re going to supplement. An additional hunk has been purchased, and we’ll just keep that turkey train a-rollin’. At least I don’t have to worry about it anymore… Sheesh. It was my own personal ‘Nam.
What are you guys going to do for Thanksgiving? Do you have any special traditions? Are you traveling, or hosting visitors? We’ll need to know. Use the comments link below.
We were going to go to my parents’ house, but that got derailed. Then they considered coming up here, but the weather is supposed to go shitty on us, so they backed off of that plan, as well. So, I guess it’ll just be the four of us, and good ol’ Black Lips Houlihan (aka Mayor McStench).
Have a great holiday, my friends!
I’ll see you on other side.
Now playing in the bunker
Do your holiday shopping at Amazon: US and Canada
The woman is in Florida for the week, so I had planned on watching Futurama on netflix and eating 32 solid ounces of mild cheddar cheese.
Well not anymore. I got a call yesterday from Disney World saying i need to pick up a bunch of frozen starch products and several cans of various assorted creams to make a hot dish for a dinner I am going to tomorrow.
That pisses me off. I don’t think I was even going to brush my teeth on my only day off this week.
Now I have to brush my teeth, wash my feet, and probably even put on flesh coverings.
Then I have to sit at these people’s house for an undisclosed period of time before finding some reason to go back to my hovel. Not that I don’t like these people, they’re great friends, but this is not what I had planned.
boy i understand where you are coming from… i had to endure going to my ex’s in laws for years because when i said i didnt want to go, well then they all came down on me.. greatest day was the first thanksgiving right after my divorce.. i stayed in my apartment and had the greatest time of my life.. that was 4 years ago…. i stay home every other year to celebrate my freedom from in laws.
Happy Thanksgiving! That’s really early to get a Turkey. I would be worried about cooking it the following Thursday.
We’re headed to Northern Michigan to clean out my folks old place. Thanksgiving will be “celebrated” with my family in the area on Saturday to allow all the cousins to have turkey with their respective in-laws tomorrow.
Mostly my holiday weekend will be about working.
The Peanut is staying in the home area with Grandma and going to be with her and my SIL’s family on Thursday. There’s a lot of drama going on with the SIL right now (that I’m not in the middle of, thank God) so I’m hoping that doesn’t turn into some kind of debalce that will cause me to get involved. That never, ever goes well and has the potential to end with me being “perp-walked:.
I miss the old days when my parents hosted my Moms’ family while my father had to grit his teeth and seethe with hatred.
I am making the Turkey on the grill and homemade cornbread stuffing. The guests are bringing everything else. Happy T-giving to you Mr. Kay and surf reporters.
Well I was planning on eating a traditional Thanksgiving meal at Mom’s, but I just saw the disgusting pic of the McDonald’s ketchup fountain on the Bunker Cam and lost my appetite for the rest of the week.
Have you seen the ads for the chocolate fountains at the Golden Corral? I nearly heave watching the ad. I imagine an morbidly obese person on the other end of that strawberry, then double dipping a half eaten strawberry and finally just standing there sticking an empty stick back in the flow and licking it clean repeatedly.
Exactly….the thought of patrons of Golden Corral all dipping into the fountain over and over, is like dipping your pretzel into the wading pool at the projects.
If I worked at Golden Corral I would dip muh’ hwang in the chocolate fountain and have old low self-esteem fat chicks toothlessy gnaw at it with their meth softened gums as though my meat log were a giant chocolate covered gummy worm.
I thought the very same thing when I saw that chocolate lava flowing on that commercial. I don’t care if my stick was 10 ft long…you couldn’t get me near that cesspool after everyone’s dickbeaters have been dipping in it.
Speaking of disgusting, at lunch today, ESPN was showing highlights of a turkey eating contest. Whole turkeys being ripped flesh from bone for sport.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/sonya-black-widow-thomas-eats-entire-turkey-top-prize-thanksgiving-eating-contest-article-1.981378
I had hoped for a quiet day at home, just me and the missus, but the dreaded phonecall came on Saturday. Now we’re going to drive two hours and sit in a hot house. Ah, fambily!
Which is exactly why local bars are open on Thanksgiving day…so people can escape their beloved fambly.
F the company turkey. Pay me a decency wage and i’ll buy my own friggen groceries.
Oh – happy t’giving.
I probably would have went with your option of throwing it in refrigerator. Would have had to been there to gage its degree of defrostedness.
Heading to my brothers for Thanksgiving dinner, maybe lunch would be more appropriate since we eat at 1:00pm. Should be a blast, 15-16 adults and a half dozen kids in the loft of a barn, nice and cozy. No I’m not confusing Thanksgiving and Christmas, my brother lives in a barn.
One of these years I’m going to tell my family I’ve decided to start my own tradition. Then just sit at home with a 32 ounce block of cheddar and a six pack, er 24 pack of beer and watch football in my fat pants.
Usually chaos ensues around Thanksgiving because the boyfriend’s parents have long been divorced, so we have to schedule 3 “dinners” on the big day.
1.) His Mom’s family in Los Angeles (60 miles from us)
2.) Haul ass to my parent’s house (7 houses down from us)
3.) Haul ass to his Dad’s family (20 miles from us)
Two years ago I said fukkit & started drinking the second my eyes opened & by the time we hit his dad’s house I had hit the blotto point & can’t remember a damn thing. He said I was “entertaining” & by the time he locked my seat belt on me when we left I was completely blacked out & drooling on the window. Good times.
Oh yeah…for this year luckily my parent’s went to Texas, his mom’s side cancelled their party & that leaves only his dad’s side & all I have to do is make some rolls. No biggie. Done & done…but the drinking will begin once I wake up again. Just for memory’s sake.
The turkey would have been fine to refreeze. Food Borne illness is so overrated.
After working at the grocery store tomorrow, since I had to beg to work a half day on Sunday, I will be making the big meal with my 3 years older than me mother in law. Then, maybe take a trip east of I-75 to see how many rednecks burnt down their trailers this year due to deep frying frozen turkey. Always in the double digits out there.
Finally, I will be one of “those” people and stand in line at Best Buy from 9:00 PM until the next morning. At least they put up a big screen tarp in the parking lot to show the final Harry Potter movie on a loop all night.
Food Borne illness is only overrated until you get it. I was in Havana this past May and ate something I shouldn’t. I spent the night with it coming out both ends thereby ending my 18 year and 11 month no vomit streak. I felt a little better the next morning so I went sight seeing. That ended with me face down in my own vomit on a sidewalk in downtown Havana. I spent the next 24 hours sleeping in the hotel until our flight home. Good times.
Did you have to check your calendar or to you keep running total on the days between pukes?
It has been 22 years and 354 days for me. It is easy when you know your last drunk…
Gordie, there’s a song that could be your Havana Dining Anthem:
http://www.arrogantworms.com/music/little-cuban-friend/
Pardon their spelling errors, a link is provided for listening and for purchasing the song at the top of the lyrical text…. and may your intestines develop sufficient fortitude to vanquish your “Little Cuban Friend”!
Working from 5am to 5pm. I do get 12 hours of straight time. But the people who are off get 8 hours, so it is hardly worth it.
I hate working holidays.
Big shindig at the Wiseman house. We will have Turducken, smoked Turkey, and ham. It’s always a feast. We top it off with plenty of pies and an old depression recipe, Vinegar cobbler. It sounds awful but it is awesome. Happy Thanksgiving all!
None of my fambly are around. So it’s all my boyfriends fambly. Have to go to his parents for the noon turkey dinner. Then to his sister’s an hour away for the 5PM turkey dinner. So ridiculous. His mother won’t budge from the house. Even for us and we’re only 3 minutes away. And it’s such a clusterfuck at his parent’s house. Too many mooch-good-for-nothing foster kids with their babies…all crying and whining at once. Plus their house is way too small for this ridiculousness.
I prefer to say home and cook. I love to cook. And I like having the leftovers.
Have a great Thanksgiving everyone. Eat a lot, drink more.
you MIL sounds like my mother. “WHAT??? LEAVE MY APARTMENT??” She isn’t even agoraphobic. Just old, cranky and tired.
Oh hell, bless the old bat. Love ya, Mom.
For the past couple years I would sit naked on the couch and make obscene turkey noises. There was a lot of, “Gobble-me, Gobble-me”, and other things turkeys say but I think that act has had it’s run. Today before I headed off to the store I did ask about tomorrow and she said…”Better get some more ‘Beano'”.
Going to the MIL’s house for one meal (haven’t been able to say that sentence in 21 years), then over to sister’s house for another trough full. Then, I’m going straight home and taking my pants off. Oh, the taking of the pants off after mucho food intake, is glorious.
I left work at noon-ish just for this and since have baked a coconut pie, have a pumpkin pie in the oven, made a three bean salad, boiled a pot of eggs for deviling and giblet gravy. Now I’m just waiting for the pumpkin pie to come out so I can put the little turkey in.
I plan to start cocktails at 5:00 sharp, so all cooking will be over shortly thereafter, but, I’ll get up at the ass crack of dawn in the morning and make the dressing (cornflake like my Mama always did) and green bean casserole (for the boy) as well as all the other accroutrement.
We’ll load it all up and take it to my Daddy’s tomorrow for lunch time and eat approximately 1/8 of it . The rest will hang in the refrigerator until John throws it out next Tuesday.
Oh yeah, I made a pecan tart yesterday. That bad boy looked and smelled delicious–honey and brown sugar. We’ll probably finish it all. Fat, fat the water rat.
I gotta work Friday as payback for today.
Jeff, you did the right thing by putting the bird in the fridge. You could have waited to cook it Thursday but now you just prolonged your holiday and that’s a happy thing! Beloved is in the food business so I’m no talking out my ass.
My sister is coming tomorrow and will stay over. Beloved has been cooking for days – pie, stuffing and pumpkin bread. Sis made an apple pie. I think we’re smoking the turkey. Wine will be flowing. I have a few more sides to take care of and we’re done. In fact, in about 10 inutes I’m going to make my cranberries.
I’m just grateful channel 11 is running “March of the Wooden Soldiers.” To hell with vacuuming – Ill be watching Stany Dee and Ollie Dum.
I’ve been watching that same movie on thanksgiving day since I was a kid ! Finally have it on DVD .
We got a turkey for Thanksgiving at a place I worked one year. The guys handing them out of a large truck with a roll-up door had a real mofia or gangster feel to them. The closer you got to the truck, the more it stunk.
A woman in front of me said, “no thanks.” And the gangster told her, “Take the fucking turkey, lady.” So everyone took their turkey. Juice and stick were pouring off of it. Mine went straight into the dumpster (once I was safely out of sight of Tony Soprano).
I got one of those spiral cut hams to go with our turkey one year and it was fucking super great.
This year I’m doing my traditional tiny turkey again. Everyone gets their own tiny turkey, tiny carrots, tiny everything. It’s worked well in the past and I thought it up on this site a couple of years ago. So I have the Surf Report to thank for that.
“Take the fucking turkey, lady” ROFLMAO. I swear, I can picture this scene and I have tears rolling down my cheeks. I’m choking here.
Me too! I think we just watch too many gangster movies.
“I amuse you? I make you laugh? What the fuck is so funny? Funny, how? Like a pullet?”
I like to pull it on thanksgiving.
Gangsta turkeys, gotta love ’em.
I hate spiral cut food.
I limits my ability to plunge my fist into the body of a fine dead animal and pull a huck of nurishment from its steaming wads of flavored muscle.
I did a spiral sliced ham for Canadian Thanksgiving… in the oven with the convection fan on, the outer edge of each slice becomes crispy like bacon… you heard me…. bacon….
They would have beaten you with a drumstick
Cold turkey is much preferred to hot. Our “free” turkey from the grocery store has been sandwichized and gone days ago. I’ll suffer hot turkey tomorrow then, yay! turkey sandwiches again.
It doesn’t get much better than a big stack of real turkey and ham sandwiches (I don’t eat ‘lunch meat’)
You may re-freeze a turkety after it has been properly thawed. A thawed turkey should either be be cooked or re-frozen within two days. If you have questions about how to handle and/or cook a turkey, this is the USDA’s current version of the facts:
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/factsheets/lets_talk_turkey/index.asp
The wifey and I are a-gonna cook a large dead turkey, stuffing, some sweet taters, butternut squash soup, green bean casserole, and a pie. The in-laws and some friends of ours are bringing the rest. We haven’t had a big thanksgiving gathering in our own home in a number of years, so it’ll be different, to say the least. I just hope I don’t end up killing anyone. Xanax and wine; personal friend of mine….
Or maybe I could have written: xanax and wine; sweet child o’ mine?
last year i had the pressed turkey brick in a box, one yam, and some stovetop stuffing with gravy.. this year, im going to a friends house to tie on the ol feedbag.. apparently they set up a huge buffet.. im making the debiled eggs tonight..
Tomorrow at this time i will be saying “RELEASE THE KRACKEN ” and then fall into a coma.
Happy Tanksgibbin everybody!!
I am grateful for Jeff and the Surf Reporters
debiled eggs? I make a mean defiled egg! Not to be confused with vile eggs!
mmmmmm defiled eggs..
I am currently reporting from the girlfriend’s house…with 3 of the 5 dogs surrounding me, including one who just got neutered this morning (who is rightfully miserable). Tomorrow, I get to make a nice two hour drive up to an uncle’s house for thanksgiving with the fambly and then we’re coming back here to sleep it all off.
Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends!
Canadian Thanksgiving was the second weekend in October, we had a family campout in my parents back yard. I bought my first camping trailer this year, so everyone (parents and brother/SIL) now has their own box-o-beds to sleep in. It turned out to be a warm weekend and I loved every minute of it. Mom chef-ed up turkey, meat pie, stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams, carrots, rolls, pumpkin pie and blueberry pie.
I guess it’s up to you, me, Alex and a handful of others to watch the store for the rest of the week.
My brother who lives in Kentucky might be coming up on Saturday so I just might get a bird this weekend after all.
I am currently doing the advance prep for my sausage stuffing (technically dressing since it won’t see the inside of a bird). I will take it to Dover PA tomorrow for final assembly. While there I will also make gravy to accompany the toikey roasted by our hostess. (She’s the Hostess with the Roastest.) We will all eat too much, and enjoy doing so.
Word to Saint Boisterous.
.
Merry Thanksgivings!
Happy many thanks.
To all a good night. Food. I’m stuffing my bird.
not a large dead fowl fan
but cousins from hell are here every yr for deer season insist
so one yr i tryed 2 bottles of tobasco sauce injected into turky flesh
thought that way never have to cook another turkey
it is now required i do that every freakin yr now
damn tradition
but it is good time to have table surrounded deer hunters, like the he man woman haters club on little rascals, eating tobasco turky, mashed taters withgravy made from tobasco turky broth and the other required dish is big pot noodles made with the tobasco broth
all washed down with beer
no yukky sweet potatoes or other annoying vegitables
just flesh and starch
good times
My husband has been planning this turkey feast for a week since he found a recipe for Mexican Turkey, Mexican dressing, etc. The glaze for the turkey has apricot jelly and chilli powder in it. The dressing uses chorizo sausage. I guess the rest of the menu will be “regular”. I’ll be left with one helluva mess in the kitchen. I guess that’s a fair tradeoff? We’ll go visiting his family this weekend.
Y’all be safe.
Happy Thanksgiving to all. Thanks for making me laugh all year. I’m off to do some culinary damage.
The boy who cried turkeywolf is dead! And rightfully so!
People please, for the last time, HAM DOES NOT GO IN STUFFING!
But sausage bits go there very happily.
Maybe next year I’ll fry a turkey again.
.
Now for the cheese.
I ate for nearly 2 hours straight. I’m in very happy pain. Now- pie.
PIE!!!
aaaahh.. finally on the couch with my fatpants on.. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
leftovers
chomp chomp achewy chomp
pie