Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Goodbye Mr. Tom

Yesterday morning at dawn, after the pancake breakfast I made when Kurt woke me up way too early, we dispatched our Thanksgiving turkey as well as one for my friend Darlene. I didn't photograph the process since posting blood and gore pictures goes beyond this blog's parameters.

Over breakfast, we discussed turkey dispatching methods. Some friends recently processed turkeys and decided they were much more difficult to pluck than chickens. Wanting a quick death for the turkeys, while at the same time trying to mercifully imitate recommended methods for loosening feathers and because my friend Diane in Alaska does it, we decided to use a gun. It worked well. We were able to pluck and clean our couple of turkeys in record time. I think the turkeys ended up being about 20 pounds each.

Darlene came over to help process her own turkey. Darlene is a hoot. She did not share my compunction about photographing the process and threatened to create a photo journal about the life and death of her Thanksgiving dinner to share with her guests. (Her mother has strictly prohibited it so it will be interesting to hear about what she does.) Darlene took her turkey's feet home to show her teenage son. (She called me later to find out if I knew how to properly preserve turkey feet - yeah, right.)

This year I am going to try brining my turkey. I've never done it before but my Las Vegas family members swear by this method.

Today, I need to turn some garden grown pumpkins into puree for pie. I love growing towards self sufficiency!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Check out this link for detailed instructions on how to brine and roast your turkey:

http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/11/17/the-perfect-turkey/

Gingerbreadshouse7 said...

Deborah, I'm glad you didn't post pictures of the Turkey dispatching, I'm feeling sad already with my Son leaving...But thanks for the new word (dispatching). Ginny

Jan said...

Oh, I am such a city gal that for a moment, I thought disipatching a turkey, especially the one for your friend, was something like putting them on busses or maybe giving them subway tokens! It took me a second or two to think it through and then I realized It was too early to think about it.

Hope your dinner is tasty and filled with thanks for all the blessings of the year. I see that it hasn't been easy for you, so the biggest blessing is that you made it!

In HIS love and with mine,
Jan in PA