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Health & Fitness

Caution….Objects In The Oven May Not Be As Edible As They Appear

Thanksgiving...... it's all about the turkey... or is it?

It’s getting dark earlier these days. I know it signals the end of daylight savings time (I call it “daylight losing” time.) It’s nice to gain an hour in the spring but
I think the people who decide these things (who are these people anyway?) should reverse their finding and give us the extra hour in the fall. It does make it more fun and spookier when it gets dark early for the kids on Halloween but I need that extra hour in the fall and winter months. (I think the reason all those Jack O Lanterns are grinning on Halloween is because they know that it’s the beginning of the end of calm and the start of the manic “Holiday Season”).

There’s so much to do… decorating, writing cards, cleaning, entertaining, shopping, wrapping, baking, juggling families and schedules and last but not least… cooking.  Almost immediately, the commercialism starts with the retailers screaming for your attention and money. “Get fifteen dollars in store money for every fifty dollars you spend.” The concept that you have to spend money to get money… is that from Economics 101? I don’t know but what if you don’t have the money to spend to begin with? The grocery stores begin their big turkey giveaway campaign. “Spend three hundred dollars and get a free turkey….. or gas” (of course with most Thanksgiving dinners, you end up getting both). And free turkeys are just about everywhere. Trouble is, I don’t have any room for them in the refrigerator and cooking them presents a whole new set of problems.

I’m not really sure how to cook (or is it roast?) a turkey even though they usually
come with instructions. I have a problem figuring out literally which end is up and by that I mean which end of the bird is which. I finally realized that I have to take all “innards” out from both ends of the bird. The instructions don’t always tell you to check both ends. Cooking the turkey with the bagged “guts" inside is almost as bad as failure to remove the “rope” that holds the turkey legs up in the air (Yeah… I did that once or maybe twice). I always wondered how in the world they got the turkey to stay put in such an awkward position. (Actually, it’s a very degrading position even for a dead turkey and what it reminds me of is something I cannot put in this blog but my girlfriends all know.) The instructions say to use the "chittlings” to make the gravy. Trouble is there's no picture of what the stuff that’s packed inside the turkey looks like... nothing to identify what’s what and those white packets that the companies use to stuff turkey parts inside the turkeys? They look like something a drug dealer would use if you ask me.  But there are some parts that are easily identified.

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It’s pretty obvious which item is the neck because it does look like well, a neck.
But then there's some slippery, slimy stuff that's really red and two more "items" that are kind of hard. Apparently one of these is the heart and the other is the gizzard. In addition, somewhere in this whole mess is the liver.

Here's what I think: butterball and the other turkey companies need to give us some more information. They do give instructions on how to prepare the turkey but pictures and more detailed information would be helpful. (I really don't want to be putting the heart or the liver into boiling water to make gravy if I'm supposed to be using just the neck) I have another "beef" (wrong word here?) about turkey preparation.

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The instructions on where to insert the thermometer are also vague. Here’s a
direct quote from the instructions, "Insert meat thermometer into thigh so tip is in lower portion of muscle just above and beyond the lower part of the thigh bone, pointing towards the body." They lost me somewhere around "lower portion of muscle." I really have no idea where the turkey thigh is. I know what a drumstick looks like but that's only after it's been torn off from the rest of the turkey. It's kind of hard to see where it is when it's still attached to the bird. You need a course in biology just to prepare a turkey for the oven. 

Here's my final complaint... The instructions state that you should cook the turkey breast side down in the pan. That’s a problem if you aren’t familiar with turkey breasts. In order to determine where the breasts are, you have to have an image of the total turkey. The turkey from Butterball is headless.... (thank goodness) but that makes it hard to visualize the carcass flying. I can't even figure out which way the wings go much less where the turkey “chest” is. (Come to think of it, I’ve seen a lot of birds fly but never a turkey. I am told they fly and roost (or is it roast?) in trees. I would love to see that sometime but as of now, the only place I have seen a turkey has been either in the grocery store or my oven). It would really help if the companies would mark plainly on one side of the their turkeys, "This End Up." (UPS marks their packages this way for deliveries. Surgeons mark the leg or arm that they are going to operate so they don't make a mistake. Why don’t the food people do this too?)

It’s frustrating because all this turkey drama gets repeated in about thirty days when Christmas rolls around so you can see why I am not too interested in having several free turkeys. I suppose I could just get a ham but there’s something wonderful about the smell of a turkey cooking all morning in the oven. It signifies Thanksgiving along with all the other traditional food. It just wouldn’t be the same.

I know what I’m doing this year. I’m getting one of those “previously cooked
birds, heating it up in the oven, and claiming it as my own. The chef at the grocery store says I can even pick it up on Thanksgiving Day and he won’t tell if I won’t tell. When I reheat it, its ‘fragrance” will hopefully still permeate the air. If not, let me suggest a solution to the problem.

The air freshener manufacturers should market an air freshener especially for Thanksgiving… one that smells like turkey cooking!  (After all, they already have every other scent imaginable now including “rain”, “linen”, and “lilac”). That way, frazzled people such as myself could bring in the catered food and no one would know. (I don’t quite understand what’s going on with air fresheners. I thought their purpose was to freshen the air. Now it seems they also double as nightlights, fans, and additional electrical outlets. There’s even one brand that provides a special “light show." Air fresheners for entertainment? Now that’s just strange.) Another suggestion is for the makers of all those "flavored candles." They could add a turkey scented candle. This would fit right in with their Pumpkin Pie scented candle.

In retrospect, Thanksgiving is so much more than an item on a menu. It’s about our country’s history and taking time to be thankful for all we have. I’m thankful for family and friends and that so many of us can be together on this special day. I’m thankful for living in a free county. (I’m thankful that none of the food I eat on Thanksgiving has any calories… I have a reliable source for that one.) I’m also thankful for jeans with elastic waistbands and stuffing and pies) But free turkeys? That’s not something that’s on my list.  What I am most thankful for is someone else cooking the turkey.

And as much as I enjoy the holidays, I’m thankful that in a little over a month’s time, January 1st will roll around once again and I’ll have a full ten more months to recover before I have to get ready to do it all over once again.

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