[Sca-cooks] OOP - Turkey, again!

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Evening, all!

I find myself in an unusual position this year, as we approach the
American Thanksgiving holiday.

I am the remote kitchener for Thanksgiving at my Mom's house, with my
Mom being the nominal hostess, but absolutely forbidden by medical
necessity to do any of the cooking (she's 84 and just out of the
hospital, recovering from a hip fracture). It's my plan to serve what
would be take-out food of an appropriate nature, except I'll be doing
most of the cooking at my place, in my kitchen (the idea being to
leave as much of the mess as possible at my own house, not my Mom's).
There should be around 30 people present; I will also be bringing
several folding chairs!

My own plans include a very mundane meal, with essentials brought by
yers truly, with other stuff brought by various siblings and such,
all more or less coordinated by e-mail and phone.

What I will be producing is my usual contribution, that generally
being around 15 pounds worth of mashed Idaho potatoes with butter,
heavy cream, and garlic boiled with the spuds. Simple, unhealthy, and
more or less irresistible to humans of weak moral fiber.

Also one (1) apple, or possibly cherry, pie, made in my 16-inch
baklava pan. I have several (maybe 20) pounds of sour pie cherries in
my big freezer, so I may opt to use them, or just buy enough apples
to do the job. I haven't decided. I am a proponent of the uncooked
apple pie filling, as opposed to making a gooey mass of cooked fruit
and sticking it into a pie. Theological views vary on this important
issue, and ecumenism is a good thing, but I was raised a raw-filling
apple-pie man.

I often produce a batch of small onions, creamed in a cream-laced
bechamel, usually with a little nutmeg and some savory. Not everyone
eats them, but if they're not there, there is always a small but
vocal protest, wailing and gnashing of teeth. I think I've managed to
convince various relatives that should my Mom go to her Eternal
Reward, there will be someone there who can carry on for her, and
make creamed onions.

In addition to this, I'll be adding to the repertoire two
fifteen-pound turkeys (this will be augmented with a Maryland ham and
bacalao salad con verdura brought by the usual suspects, and there
are a fair number of vegetarians, too, so animal protein should not
be a problem), plus a suitable gravy, and I'm considering a meatless
variant on Cajun dirty rice, which was a common stuffing/dressing
alternative of my own childhood. I have some very firm pressed bean
curd, the brown kind cooked in soy with sweet spices, that I think I
can grind up to sub fairly well for the ground pork, liver and
gizzards generally added to this dish. I probably will saute the
chopped curd with a drop of angostura bitters to give it that slight
livery sharpness. Otherwise it'll be pretty much the same dish, a
pilaf cooked in stock (veg) with sweated celery and onion, with lots
of garlic, green, red, and black pepper, and the ground protein
source stirred in while simmering. This may be a heretical Yankee
variant (apart from that most obvious substitution), but I'm not too
worried about it.

About turkey. Since I already have a fifteen-pound turkey in my
freezer (well, it _was_ in my freezer -- yes, I have begun thawing it
already), I plan to purchase another of more or less the same size,
then split and semi-bone them, producing four rolled, tied, turkey
roasts, each with meat, skin, and upper wing section bone and
drumstick bone. The thigh bone and the lower wing section
(unfortunately my favorite part of the bird) will be removed (so I'll
just have to eat them myself, later). Since we're going for
simplicity here, I would rather have perfectly cooked,
easy-to-slice-and-serve turkey, rather than worry about that grand,
Norman Rockwell presentation. There also seems to be less waste when
this is done. It occurred to me that, in lieu of the aromatics stuck
into the body cavity to add flavor and perfume to an otherwise fairly
insipid bird, and since there'll be no body cavity anyway, I figure
I'll roast on a bed of mirepoix (two parts onion, one part each of
carrot and celery). It also occurred to me to brine the birds
overnight to add a bit of flavor to their inside; I just checked the
Food Network website and discovered that Alton Brown recommends this
anyway. His brine is made from vegetable broth, Kosher salt, and
brown sugar. I'd been planning on a sort of Bayonne-style white wine
brine, but this sounds good, too.

The turkey will be roasted to a barely legal 160 degrees Fahrenheit;
none of this 190-degree cr*p.

I'm hearing rumors of sweet-potato pudding with brown sugar and
pecans, some kind of cornbread dressing, pumpkin pie and pumpkin
cheesecake, cranberry dressing, and additional vegetables, from the
outlying parishes.

So, apart from having shocked 'Murricans by suggesting
turkey-off-the-bone, this is as close an approximation to our
family's traditional Thanksgiving dinner as I can get under the
circumstances. I've probably forgotten something. My sister is
beverage manager.

Is anybody else doing anything unusual (compared to what they usually
do)? We seem to have this discussion every year, usually on the
Friday. I just thought I'd get it started a little earlier.

Happy holiday!

Adamantius