So this time of year, when everyone's traditionally busy gathering with their families and celebrating all that they're thankful for, I've usually been on an airplane to some far reaching destination in search of a cheap getaway, a couple of thrills and a swim-up bar. Not this year though. This year, Buzz and I decided that although we have no family here on the island, that wouldn't keep us from enjoying a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. You know, turkey, root vegetables, home baked pies. The whole she-bang. Because, you know, if we waited until we had family with us, we'd never do anything here on the sandbar.
So we planned and plotted the whole meal. Buzz's big request was for root vegetables. Smelly, nasty root vegetables. Turnips and parsnips. I happily complied and it wasn't until I was at the Superstore and scouring the vegetable aisle that I realized for the first time that rutabegas and turnips are the same thing. Who knew? Not me, and did I feel stupid when I asked the store's vegetable guy where I could find turnips and he quietly informed me that I was standing right in front of them. That's how often I cook these things. My lesson? A turnip by any other name still stinks when you boil it.
In the grand scheme of things the smelly turnips & parsnips where a highlight of the meal.
Earlier in the week we stumbled across a little TV show called Chef at Home where the host (and local island chef) was lauding the joys of a turkey that was first brined before being roasted. Buzz and I looked at each other and said "Hey! We should do that!" The recipe was simple enough - two pounds of seasalt and about 10 gallons of water with the turkey immersed in the solution for twenty-four hours prior to roasting and you would enjoy a succulent, juicy, flavourful turkey for your Thanksgiving feast.
Ahem.
Before I get to the great turkey massacre of 2009 let me tell you about my potatoes. We don't eat potatoes very often here. We're more like rice or couscous people. But it's a freakin' potato, so what could go wrong you might very well ask? Plenty! Especially if you decide that in order to add a little flavor you combine a few teaspoons of sour cream to the mashed potatoes. And if I had just stopped at mashing I'm sure they would have been perfect. But I didn't stop at the mashing. No. Being a gooor-may, I decided to whip out the immersion blender and proceeded to pulverize the potatoes. And did you know that if you combine a starchy vegetable like a potato, with high-fat sour cream and a 1000-rpm immersion blender you end up with a glob of home-made glue? That's the secret recipe people! I've been cooking for Buzz for over 3 years now...breakfasts, lunches, dinners. He is a charter member of the clean plate club. But not tonight. Tonight, even Buzz couldn't choke down the potato glue on his plate. He decided that if he was going to crap again this week he best not bung his entire system up with potato glue.
Now, a traditional Thanksgiving Dinner must include all the fixings like cranberry sauce and gravy, right? I was going to make a home-made cranberry sauce using a recipe from this same TV chef, but once I realized I could buy a can of the no-name stuff for about a tenth of what it would cost to create my own recipe from scratch, I decided we weren't too good for canned cranberries.
But! We were definitely too good for canned gravy so as the turkey was resting and the turnips were boiling I set about making the gravy. I did it exactly the way I've seen my mom, my friend's moms, my mother-in-law and my aunts do it time and time again. I made a slurry with flour and water from the giblets, combined with the drippings from the turkey pan and began whisking in water from the vegetables. This was when I had my first indication that something might be up with the turkey. When I dipped my spoon into the gravy to taste-test for seasoning I about choked. Up until this point I had not added any seasoning - no salt, no pepper, nothing - just simply giblet water, vegetable water, flour and pan drippings. The cows in our neighbour's field would have loved the gravy - that's how closely it resembled a salt-lick.
"HOLY Shit!" I hollered to Buzz. "If the turkey is a salty as the gravy is, we've got a problem!"
While I continued trying to save the gravy (I threw a piece of potato in to try to absorb some of the salt), Buzz began to dismember the bird. You know those beautiful Butterball TV commercials where the platter of turkey is a golden brown, glistening ball of turkey goodness? Ours - not so much. I followed the cooking instructions of 12 minutes per pound (so for an 11-pound bird I roasted it for 2.5 hours) but this time, this time? Instead of smooth slices of moist turkey meat ours came off in something I will generously call bite-sized chunks.
It seemed the Brining had not only added "flavour" it also robbed our bird of any hope of moisture and juiciness it might have otherwise had if I had simply rubbed it's little body with salt & pepper and shoved an onion up its wazzoo and stuck it in the oven. No, people, our turkey dinner featured a dry, haggard old salty bastard of a bird that I'm hoping will redeem itself when I put it in soup tomorrow.
But I'm not done...oh no! Just like those Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock our traditional Thanksgiving dinner also featured corn. Okay, so ours was frozen corn, but still corn none-the-less. And you know what? That's right! I wrecked the corn too! I put it the microwave not only too long, but without enough water. So you know what I ended up with? Damn near popcorn is what I ended up with.
If there is one thing I could say was a huge success it would have to be the apple gallette I made with apples we picked today at a nearby orchard. Think of it, folks. At one o'clock today those apples were all still on trees and by seven o'clock tonight they were in a tart that was so damn good, I should have just had that for our traditional Thanksgiving dinner.
You know, I take great pride in being a good cook. Friday night I made an outstanding pork tenderloin with a mushroom risotto recipe I made up on the spot. It was delicious. I made chili con carne for dinner yesterday that included smokey chipotle peppers and three kinds of beans and was so flavourful I thought I could open my own cantina here on the island. Let's don't even talk about my interpretation on oven fried chicken.
But, ask me to create a traditional meal that cooks on this island have been making since time immemorial and I can't even get the potatoes right. I've already advised Buzz that if we're home for Christmas he's in charge of dinner, because this traditional stuff? It's not my thing.
