Food Orgy Preparation Begins

Thanksgiving is almost here.

I’m trying to rein myself in. I tend to make too much food. It will be me and my dad again. Maybe my sister.

The logical thing to do is to fix a small turkey. Unfortunately, I have the turducken bug. I was making a list today, and I started out with one bird on it, and then a second one sort of jumped onto the list without warning.

If I can’t make myself take it off, I’m going to end up with a two-bird entree. We can’t eat three, and I’m not crazy enough to bone three birds, so I’m thinking a 10-12 pound turkey and a fryer inside it. I’ll put cornbread dressing in the turkey, and I’ll put white bread dressing with crabmeat (sauteed in Marsala) in the chicken.

One great thing about turducken is that it has no bones, apart from ornamental ones you may leave in the outermost bird.I should probably remove those, too, though. I like a nice bird loaf you can slice. The good thing about a boneless bird is that you don’t end up with a dried-out bird skeleton in the fridge, with little bits of stubborn meat stuck on it.

I tell Marv his real name is Birdloaf.

Mike is telling me to use the Popeil Showtime Oven. It’s tempting. On the other hand, a turducken is not very rigid, and I’m not sure how well it would stand up to being turned on a rotisserie.

Someone was trying to sell me on turkey frying today. I’ve only had one fried turkey, and it was hard and rubbery. My roasted turkeys are moist and tender. I bake them at 175 degrees so they don’t turn into cement.

I’m thinking one pecan pie, one pumpkin pie, pole beans with some type of pork, yams, mashed potatoes, and conceivably some sourdough. Also cranberry sauce and cranberry relish. I’m not a fan of cranberry sauce, but my dad has to have the same exact thing he ate when he was a kid. We’ll also have to have a horrifying dish of oyster dressing. I don’t even like to be in the room with that stuff. I don’t know how to make it, so I cram oysters into regular dressing and bake it. No complaints yet.

This is going to be really good. It’s nice to have a gift for cooking, even if I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it.