Turkey Tales: Part Two

Thursday: I woke up just before 6am, not because I felt like it but I heard my Chicago family creep in the door after a long, grueling drive. After giggling and whatnot with them for an hour, I went outside to examine my bird. I figured since it was a 20 pound bird, I needed to get it in by 8 for dinner at 3. I mean, 20 minutes per/lb. times 20 pounds is 400 minutes, plus 30 minutes to rest is what, like 7 hours? Keep that formula in mind as you read.

Anyway, we started setting up the tables. At first we had two, separate tables but then we opted to push them together to make one big table and we liked that much better. At 11, after several bastings, the turkey looked......kinda done. What? I scrambled through the junk drawer trying to unearth a meat thermometer. 180 degrees? Oh my, I thought I ruined Thanksgiving! I don't really know how a 20 lb bird was done in 3 hours (at 350 degrees, thank you), perhaps my oven is off but better early than too late. Going with my whole Zen-like attitude, I decided not to get flustered and just put it back in the oven for 30 minutes before the meal. I don't know if it was the brine or what, but the turkey was tasty and moist and it even freed up all the room in the oven for my other dishes! Perfect! I'll just pretend I did that on purpose.

Usually with a big dinner like this, I will horribly mangle at least one thing. Besides the turkey confusion, everything went smoothly. Dinner even started right on time. The cranberries were tart.....

...the gravy was rosemary-infused...

...the yams were all candied...

...little, wee onions stuffed and roasted...

...and Jamie arrived just in time to bake up these goodies.


Whew, I'm getting tired again, I'll have to give the dessert rundown later!