Much as we enjoyed the festivities on Independence Day or watching family tear into presents on Christmas, Grandpa and I always felt that Thanksgiving was truly our favourite holiday of the year.
That’s not to say that the others don’t have their merits and yes, the hope inspired at Easter of a better life to come is certainly a strong mark in it’s favour.
But it was always Thanksgiving that we were happiest and not just because we were more than happy to enjoy the feast (and at least in my case, I was even then my physique was best described as…somewhat panoramic.
It’s the whole notion of the holiday of being wholeheartedly thankful for what one has starting with the love and companionship of family and those we cherish and think of often that we’d always found most attractive.
And yes, there was enough food to feed an army and most of the time the most stressful part of the day was when it was time to tidy up the leftovers.
*THAT* debate over who was taking what (or more often, “I don’t have room in my refrigerator and would hate for it to go to waste…”!) was often far more edgy and ruthless than the occasional debates on politics in whatever Florida room we found ourselves in whilst trying to recover from the tryptophan overdose where the discussions could get a little tense.
I’ll confess, I was not the most helpful as I’d usually wait for the point where the liberals and conservatives were taking a breather before lobbing a controversy grenade into the middle of the conversation and then they were off again. Whilst I’m in this mood to confess, I’ll also admit that I had a habit of playing on both sides of the argument (it was here that “The Rampaging Moderate” was truly born!).
The slight smile on Grandpa’s face as he was quietly reading his Bible in the corner and occasionally keeping an eye on us was well worth it until it was time for the Carrom board to make an appearance where he’d wipe the floor with the lot of us.
But in spite of the leftovers gladiatorial games in the kitchen arena and the debates, more often than not we did survive the Thanksgiving feast mostly intact if not as stuffed as the turkey.
That doesn’t mean that all of these lovely occasions went as swimmingly as previous disclosures might have led you to believe. As I’m the last person alive on Earth who was witness to a couple of our more exciting and harrowing Thanksgivings, I think it’s safe to share some of our more infamous attempts at that traditional Thanksgiving Feast.
It Was A Lovely Idea Were It Not For One Missed Step…
Our first Thanksgiving after completing the octet of family within two square miles of each other in Port Orange was certainly unforgettable thanks to the attempted immolation of the turkey and almost setting the rest of Grandma’s house on fire.
That year, Grandma had found an article in a magazine extolling the virtues of cooking the turkey in a sealed paper bag and figured she’d give it a try. The promised moistness of the roasted turkey without having to baste the bird every so often and thus reduce the workload significantly was certainly an attractive proposition
Even though you’re likely used to the translucent nylon bags we use nowadays where you can actually see the turkey, you can actually achieve a similar effect of roasting the turkey in a steam-filled environment with a paper bag.
However, there is one critical step where you grease the bag with a fair heap of lard or Crisco so that the bird can be extricated from the bag easily without having paper sack stuck to your turkey…and she accidentally missed that step which could have been catastrophic.
It wasn’t a matter of worrying about the paper burning because unless you turn on the broiler, the normal roasting temperature of 325 degrees F isn’t enough to set the paper bag alight. Thank you Ray Bradbury for that useful bit of knowledge! 🙂
But what really caused problems was that one of the clips sealing the bag failed and the turkey juices infused with the turkey fats ended up jetting out of the breached bag and onto the oven burners.
That started smoking fairly quickly which overwhelmed the oven vent and the fire alarm started screaming as the kitchen started filling with smoke. Dad opens the oven as I’m hauling out the fire extinguisher we’d bought for Grandma and Grandpa the week before and we were able to quickly put out the flames that had started on the exposed oven burner bars.
Fortunately, we didn’t have to ring up the fire brigade whose headquarters was literally right next to the entrance of our neighbourhood but that turkey was well and truly buggered with the bag hopelessly stuck to the carcass and the fire extinguisher sauce.
There was some good news and bad news.
The good news (besides a smoke-filled kitchen and a rather unpleasant oven cleaning once it cooled down sufficiently) was that Publix was still open and had cooked Thanksgiving meals available for purchase that had been ordered but not collected (whether it was a canceled order or a squirrel moment, I couldn’t tell you…I was just thankful the meal wasn’t a complete bust).
The bad news was that I got to use the full driving licence I’d gotten when I was 15 years old by knowing more about the Constitution’s “full faith and credit” clause than Florida’s driving examiners.
Yep, I got to do the drive of shame to the Publix that year and of course, our friends in the deli were understandably curious as to why I’d come for the prepared turkey dinner.
Sometimes it stinks being a private in the family army. 🙂
Thanks Be To God For The Toughness Of An Amana!
The following year, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Grandma was more than a little leery of using the oven to roast the turkey so she came up with an idea she felt would not only be safer for all concerned but would also free up space in the oven for less bulky and far less flammable items like the stuffing et al.
We’d discover what her idea was when we showed up a couple of hours before dinner was due to be served and found a somewhat flustered and frustrated Grandma who was not at all happy with the progress of cooking the turkey where it wasn’t browning to her satisfaction.
Actually, that bird wasn’t browning in the slightest because it was in her Amana Radarange…a monstrous 1970s vintage microwave oven with a magnetron that was so over-engineered that short of completely filling the cooking enclosure with aluminum foil, you just couldn’t kill the thing. And even then I don’t know that it’d do the trick…those microwaves were commercial-grade tough (when that actually meant something) and would stand up to even the worst abuse.
We ought to know…the three Amanas that were donated to Goodwill after Dad’s passing were still going strong several decades after they’d been built and would still outperform anything in the most modern of kitchens.
We asked her how long she’d been dutifully turning the bottom dial to 30 minutes hoping that it hadn’t been too long and that we might rescue the bird in the oven.
The poor lady had been at it for nearly 12 hours!
No wonder she was frustrated beyond belief…there was no way that bird was ever going to reach the beautiful golden colour that adverts like this would make you believe that microwave oven was capable of creating:
I can guarantee you none of the items in front of that Radarange ever saw any time inside the thing except as much less appealing looking leftovers!
That poor anaemic-looking turkey that was suffering from the worst case of desiccation imaginable and was so rock solid, not even Grandpa’s hammer and chisel could make a dent in the carcass.
Yes, we actually tried to chip pieces off that turkey. OK, he and I were in the garage with Grandma being consoled in the kitchen where she couldn’t see us…whilst we were perfectly fine with performing the experiment, we weren’t going to do that right in front of her.
So, I’m sure you know full well what came next…
Yep, I’m heading to the Publix at the intersection of Dunlawton and Nova to visit their deli counter and again confess to our culinary shame.
This time, they recognised me straightaway and were curious as to how I could possibly top the previous year’s tale of woe.
Apparently the tale of the mummified turkey from the microwave was enough to do the trick for me to walk out the store with another prepared turkey dinner with one very important difference.
This one was courtesy of Publix. They just didn’t have the heart to charge me for it after two years of being stuck doing the drive of shame, confession, and lamentations to rescue our Thanksgiving dinner.
Their motto since the beginning of time (or at least since they were founded in Lakeland FL) was “Where Shopping Is A Pleasure!”
I can’t say either of those two trips were a pleasure but at least they had reasonably happy endings.
Why Do Things The Hard Way?
I’m sure the deli crew at Publix was expecting to see me the following year to complete the humiliation hat trick but sadly for them, they were disappointed as Aunt Betty volunteered to be on turkey duty which would then rotate between her, Dad, and Aunt Nadine for the next two years.
After Grandpa passed away in 1990, our small pocket democracy in action had a majority in favour of binning all of the hassle of messing about in the kitchen and instead taking advantage of Duff’s Smorgasbord in South Daytona being open on Thanksgiving Day (and having an “early bird special” which most of us would stack with the senior discount…sort of a happy bonus to our fiscally cheap party!).
Duff’s was a rather interesting place as you’d grab a plate and then take a spot in front of a conveyor system where the trays of food would pass before you and you had to be rather quick to grab the utensil and put some on your plate. The usual winning strategy was to see everything on the first pass and then know where it was so you’d be prepared to quickly grab some.
Definitely a unique setup and rather fun provided Sister Bertha Betternyou isn’t in the space next to you and can’t be bothered to get her food in a timely fashion or manages to finish off the tray of what you were wanting that had enough to feed at least three people! Grrrrrrrrrr…
As for me, I would have one adventure with a turkey whilst at university but that’s as they say a tale for another time… 🙂
Until then, may you have a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving with family and friends secure in the knowledge that no matter what challenges may come your way, there’s always those poor buggers who’ve had a worse day than you’re having! 😉