Next year I might order out

Here is a fun Thanksgiving fact:

At six in the morning, when you and your sister are barely awake, when you must unwrap the turkey and rinse him off and stick him in the bucket of brine, when neither of you have any intention of sticking your hand in the cavity to remove the icky things within, when you decide to turn the turkey upside down and shake the icky things out, when you then cut off the gross flappy thing that covers up the hole and plop the turkey in the bucket, when you roast the turkey six hours later and your mother-in-law dissects him after dinner and FINDS THE BAG OF GIBLETS STILL INTACT, you may be a tad mortified, but you will not have ruined Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving still won't be ruined when your mother calls while the turkey is roasting and says, "You weren't supposed to cut off that gross flappy thing, moron."

Here are some other thoughts, things I learned, and highlights from my First Thanksgiving:

• What is all the fuss about brining? Did I do it wrong? Perhaps I shouldn't have combined Neighbor's recipe, Alton Brown's recipe, AND the Joy of Cooking recipe.
• I still do not enjoy knowing what my dinner looked like before it was cooked.
• A meat thermometer that cost more than my wedding ring does not ensure that we will know when the turkey is done (if the thermometer says the turkey is done but the timer says the turkey should be roasting for another HOUR, we probably put the thermometer in wrong)
• As he stood in the kitchen chopping one zillion pounds of onions, I realized I hadn't seen my brother cry like that since the time I knocked him off my bed and broke his collarbone.
• Next year I will have to physically restrain my grandmother from dumping the entire bag of flour into the gravy because "there isn't enough!" as I will now be dining on gravy until next Thanksgiving.

Also, I gained more weight from my subsequent weekend with the Chinese in-laws in Vancouver than I did from Thanksgiving. But that's what dim sum, hot pot, bubble tea, cake for breakfast and dim sum again will do to you. I had to be rolled back to Seattle.

But this week at Mighty Maggie we are all about FIGGY PUDDING. Please please please, if you told me you were going to donate, please try to get your money to me BEFORE December 2! You know who you are! And Internet, I made cookies this weekend...

Comments

[lee]

brining is the bomb. of course, i brined mr. turkey overnight when i did it. which let me do all the dirty work at my convenience, a time that is decidedly not six am.

i went out to dinner and ate turkey and salmon and catfish and crazy stuffing with walnuts and acorns (i think) and it was very tasty, but i have no leftovers.

[maggie]

but i was bombarded with warnings about brining for TOO LONG, lest mr. turkey end up tasting like a salt lick... the max was 6 hours in every recipe i found. ???

[lee]

i thought about the salt lick problem, but i reduced the salinity of the brine. of course, i also brined it from frozen in cold water in the fridge, it might be different if you thawed it first and then brined it?