This evening, while hubby and son were out walking the li’l crits, self took the opportunity to take a peek at the 16-lb. Diestel turkey, the sight of which has been causing her spirits to sink as if self were a passenger standing on the deck of the Titanic.
With no one around to see her clumsy maneuverings, she hauled that stiff carcass out of the fridge and thumped it into the sink.
Thwack!
Then, she began to prepare the brining solution.
Hmmm, let’s see, the instructions were to boil the brining ingredients in vegetable stock for five minutes. Then chill thoroughly for 24 hours.
24 hours!!!!
But tomorrow is Thanksgiving!
Ok, never mind, self dutifully began to boil the brining mix. Then she dealt with the turkey by cutting away its plastic wrapping. Its skin looked rather pimply and pink. Yuccch! Are all turkeys supposed to look this way? There were a few stray turkey feathers/ needles sticking out of the unholy carcass. Holding her nose, self removed these, gingerly.
Then, she read the instructions on the plastic wrapping.
Remove the neck and giblets from the turkey cavity. Self reached a hand into that slimy hole and came up with something encased with plastic, which looked very much like liver. She tossed the whole into the sink. Thwack! But, peering into the vacated cavity, there seemed only the slightest cave — perhaps enough to squeeze maybe a cup of stuffing. She was quite stumped, so when that genius Stanford engineer also known as Hubby returned, she showed him the hole she had made by lifting out the liver and asked him what he thought.
“What? You want me to stick my hand into that yucchy thing?” hubby exclaimed (Self thought, charitably: He must be exhausted! From walking the li’l crits five blocks!)
“No, you don’t have to, I’ll do it,” self said bravely. “But can you tell me whether there’s anything left in there?”
“OK, hold it up so I can see better,” hubby instructed.
So self took hold of that slimy bird, and held it up (nearly cracking her back muscles as she did so), and hubby declared: “No, there’s nothing left.”
But what was that bony thing sticking out of one end?
Self started to tug and tug and tug. It looked so horrible, like someone’s spine. Self started thinking of Jeffery Deaver’s The Bone Collector and other fascinating readings of yore.
Then, because hubby was deep into flat-screen HDTV, self called out to son: Help! Help!
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) Looking over the list, self thinks she’ll probably have to be pretty creative to say something about “Last Day of the Year Holiday”, Dec. 31. Which is usually a holiday here, too, in the States, only we call it “New Year’s Eve.”
