Last Sunday at noon, I took our turkey out of the fridge where it had been biding its time since Friday morning and opened the plastic wrap. Whereupon I discovered it was *still* frozen. After 50+ hours in the fridge! I read the wrapper, below the section that said you were supposed to keep the wrapper on while defrosting, to learn that I should have allowed many more hours per pound than I’d thought. Of course, I had bought a 14 pound turkey – the smallest I could find in the store – and by my math, it needed another day in the fridge or several hours in a sink full of water that was changed every half hour. Either way I wasn’t going to be putting a turkey supper on the table that night. So, turkey-lurkey went back into the fridge.
When I shared my turkey troubles with Aunt Karin helpfully advised that I should try a freezer-to-oven turkeys like Auntie M uses. It wasn’t so helpful a suggestion for the immediate problem and I’m pretty sure it’ll cost more (remember I’m sort of cheap) but if they make freezer-to-oven turkeys that are smaller than 14 pounds, I just might. Buying just a breast won’t work since my beloved likes the dark meat.
On Monday I popped the bird into the oven and prepared a reasonable sized turkey dinner. Read: I didn’t make the sweet potatoes and ham and pickle plates and stuffing that I wanted to in order to reproduce the meal that everyone would be having at Grandma Joyce’s. We had a salad, turkey, potatoes, green beans and corn on the cob. I know, I know, corn on the cob is odd for Thanksgiving but when I asked Ken what he wanted with the turkey and Ken didn’t answer but Reid put in a request for the corn on the cob. For me, deciding what to make is almost as much effort as making the meal. We had marshmallow salad for dessert since we had already eaten the apple pie I baked Sunday. You can’t just leave an apple pie on the counter, mice, fairies and who knows what might take it (and when it’s more of apple soup with a crust on top, it’s an even more pressing issue). I should note as well that Ken questioned the culinary traditions of my family for considering a dish containing marshmallows and coconut to be a “salad” but since I saw it on the salad bar at the Antler Shanty restaurant at Great Wolf Lodge, I knew we weren’t alone in our craziness. Given my overall unfavourable impression of the Antler Shanty, it’s not the ringing endorsement for which I might have hoped.
During supper, Reid noticed that Ken was eating a drumstick while she and I had pieces of white meat. Ken is the only one of he and I who likes dark meat and since I’m usually the one who puts food on Reid’s plate white meat is all she has had. Ken is a good sharer, though, and offered Reid some of his drumstick. She accepted it quickly but seemed to bite into a fatty bit and handed it back just as quickly. Ken turned the drumstick so that a nice, meaty portion was closest but Reid wasn’t interested. I told Ken that if I were him I wouldn’t push the issue since there is so much less dark meat on a bird. I learned this lesson from Grandma Joyce and Poppa Howard, who never made an issue of us kids eating asparagus.
More important to Reid than the food, though, was the table itself. I’d put a tablecloth on the table – for the first time since Reid was born, I think, since a tablecloth is said to be a hazard with a small child – and used my good china and cutlery. Reid has occasionally peaked into the china cabinet but I can’t remember the last time we used anything from it. (Ken’s birthday, maybe?) In any case, Reid was much impressed. She talked quite a lot about the “fancy plates” and “fancy bowls” and “fancy forks”.
On Tuesday night, she asked for a fancy plate again and was offended when I didn’t provide a fancy fork when I returned with the plate. A fancy plate and fork were required again on Wednesday night. We ate out Thursday and the fancy plate and fork weren’t mentioned last night. I put them away this morning. It’s fun to have someone who shares my affection for the china. Perhaps we’ll start using the china every Sunday. Ken is ambivalent, I think but Reid and I like it enough for him. And we *did* ask for it as wedding presents, after all.
Happy, very belated, thanksgiving by the way.