I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.

I had a comedy of errors for mine and even took a picture for you.

My son loves watching the food channels and announced that he wanted to brine the turkey this year. He also wanted to deep fry it but that wasn’t something I was willing to do nor  let him try on his own. We also don’t have a turkey deep fryer or 5 gallons of oil so it was never really considered, at least on my part. He continued to beg.

We did brine the turkey.

I used a recipe my son found from Alton Brown‘s website which involved a pound of salt, 6 quarts of water, five lbs of ice and a bunch of seasonings. The turkey was to go into a five gallon cooler, which we had.

The problem was the recipe called for a 12-14 lb turkey and I had bought a 24 lb turkey because they were  40 cents a pound at Wal*Mart.

It was just the three of us for Thanksgiving but I figured we’d be able to enjoy the leftovers for a while.

I’m already incredibly sick of turkey leftovers.

Anyway, we prepared the brine and unwrapped the turkey,  which was not entirely thawed out even though I had taken it out of the freezer the week before.

Son and I lowered the turkey into the cooler carefully so we didn’t splash out all of the brine mixture. We got the turkey about half way into the cooler (we were using an upright drinking cooler) and the turkey was stuck.

24 lb turkeys are big ass birds that were probably never meant to fit into a 5 gallon Igloo cooler.

Daughter was employed to sit on the turkey to get it in the cooler.

I wish I had taken pictures of this part but I was too busy laughing to think about the camera.

Meanwhile the dog is licking the part of the turkey that had not yet been forced into the cooler.

It briefly occurred to me that we might not be able to get the turkey out but we were committed at this point and pressed on.

I couldn’t fit five pound of ice into the cooler but did manage to fit a couple of trays of ice in there. I figured since the turkey wasn’t completely thawed and I was leaving the cooler outside over night it would be fine. Besides I was going to cook the damn thing so any bacteria that managed to grow would be killed.

We left the turkey outside overnight and Thursday morning I retrieved it to start the cooking process. The bird would take at least 5 hours to cook so I wanted to get it in the oven by 9 so we could eat by 2:30.

I had the oven set and the roasting pan ready to accept the bird when I wedged it out of the cooler.

My roasting pan was not meant for a 24lb bird but I had no other pans that would it would fit into so again I pressed on hoping for the best.

I couldn’t fit the lid on the pan but covered it in tin foil. For reasons I don’t fully understand the bird was finished cooking, indicated by the button that popped up as well as an internal temperature of 165 degrees, after only 2 hours of cooking.

No one was ready to eat at 11 am so I left the bird in the oven on 200 degrees for another three hours.

So we were going to have a dried out bird. I hadn’t cooked the stuffing or mashed potatoes yet. We just weren’t ready for the bird yet.

I had my first glass of wine by noon.

By the time I finished all the other cooking, set the table, showered and dressed it was 2pm. The bird was a little over done since only half of it came out of the pan when I transfered it from the roasting pan to the platter. The drumsticks and wings and whatever part of the bird that is attached to both of those appendages was left in the pan. My son pulled them out and tried his best to arrange the pieces so they looked like a whole bird. He did a pretty good job too.

Surprisingly the bird was not dried out and it tasted wonderful.

There was no arguing at the table for once and daughter spontaneously announced what she was thankful for and even more surprisingly my son followed her lead and listed the things he was thankful for. Both of them were thankful for our little family.

It couldn’t have been a nicer Thanksgiving.

I hope everyone had as nice of a holiday as we did.

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I just opened a container of guacamole, Yucatan Guacamole to be exact. With a name like Yucatan I expect it to be made south of the border. Possibly near the Yucatan Peninsula.

On the inside of the lid is a little explanation of the guacamole dip. A couple sentences about the finest ingredients and all that. Underneath that is presumably the same few sentences in Spanish. The guac is good, if it wasn’t I wouldn’t have stood there reading the inside of the cap.

It’s been years since I have studied Spanish but I remember a fair amount of it. I can piece together a sentence or two if I have to. I certainly can at least recognize words. The first word of the little blurb in English was Because. In the Spanish translation it was Parce. This really threw me since I remember Because being Por que. As I tried to remember high school Spanish I read a little more of the Spanish translation and realized that it was not Spanish but French!

French? Why the hell would they translate the story of their guacamole into French. French people don’t eat guacamole. Maybe people who are descendants from the French do but people who speak French as their first language do not eat Guacamole. Now if this little half pint container held fish eggs, snails or lizard eyes I can see the logic of translating it to French. Heck it would be wise to have the whole thing written in French since no one who speaks English as a first language is going to touch that shit, but guacamole? It just doesn’t make any sense.

Upon further inspection I noticed that this particular guacamole is a product of Mexico but made in the US. It also happens to be Kosher and has Halal stamped on it but I am not sure what that means. The only thing missing from the label is an idication that it is vegetarian. Maybe they threw some lizard eyes in it for the French

I didn’t realize this until I ran out of it. I haven’t had a diet coke in over 24 hours and I have a massive headache and I am really tired. I have tried coffee to perk me up but that just gets me too jittery. This sucks. I could run to the store to buy some but frankly I want to know how long I can go before the monkey starts screaming. I can also use this as the excuse for why I am so cranky. It’s really hard to find anything even mildly amusing to say when you are going through withdrawal.

* an hour after I posted this I was out of the game. I felt like Kramer.

I planted brussel sprouts and zucchini this spring. I also planted tomatoes and a variety of herbs. I planted the brussel sprout too close together so they didn’t do so well which is fine since I don’t like them anyway. One of the seeds traveled a fair distance and got away from the crowd and actually produced real brussel sprouts. I don’t believe in using pestides however so all the little veggies have been holes in them. Because the brussel sprout plant is so large and the leaves are so big all of my herbs suffered for lack of son. The basil and rosemary are hanging on for dear life until I can take them out of the garden and put them in a pot to grow inside during the fast approaching winter. The rest of the herbs died two months ago.

My tomato plants have produced fruit but they are anemic and still very green. I went away for the week on the 4th and forgot to ask anyone to water them. I think they are teasing me now.

The zucchini has done very well. I have more zucchini than I know what to do with and my children are tired of me putting it in every meal. When I tried to sneak it into their PB&Js they rebelled and refused to eat anymore. I have been leaving it on my neighbors doorsteps in the middle of the night but I think they know it was me.

My neighbor planted broccoli this spring and had one plant that he couldn’t fit into his garden. He gave it to me where I immediately left it on my patio table for two weeks before I planted it in a small pot. His broccoli filled up his entire garden much like my brussel sprouts. He and his family have been feasting on the most wonderfully tasty broccoli for the last month. I have a teeny, tiny broccoli bud that is about the size of a quarter.

Tonight both of my daughter’s friends came over to play before dinner. Both brought with them a paper bag filled with tomatoes. Both girls announced, separately I might add, that the tomatoes had been washed and were ready to eat. They also said that we were welcome to more. When I called the moms to thank them they both said they were sick of tomatoes. I don’t feel so bad about the zucchini anymore.

I don’t like bacon that much but I know a lot of people who love it. This year the Minnesota State Fair has decided to put it on a stick. You can read all about it here.

Minnesota has been listed in the top places to live and raise kids and has placed on all sorts of those kinds of lists but I don’t think we are on the list of lowest cholesterol. This might be why.

Speaking of bacon, I heard a recipe yesterday for Bacon Vodka. You take three or four cook pieces of bacon and put them in a mason jar and then fill that with vodka. Put it in a closet or other cool dark place for a few weeks and then strain out the fat and bacon. Chill and drink I guess. I have no idea what this could be mixed with except for Bloody Marys. That almost sounds ok. I guess I would need a lot of the vodka before I could say for sure.