Its only Wednesday, and I'm Sick of Turkey Already!

Ok, so I will probably eat my share when the day comes tomorrow. My weariness of turkey comes from the fallout of what I thought was going to be a simple, brilliant idea. As usual, none of my ideas are simple (though they may be brilliant!)

It all began when I had the idea to move our Wednesday night service to Tuesday the week of Thanksgiving, which is this week. In uncharacteristic form, I had actually been planning the service for months. Our church normally has a Thanksgiving banquet the Friday of the previous week, but I wanted to save our folks some time. I also thought it would be nice to let our ladies who are cooking the big meal have Wednesday night off to help with preparation. So we moved the service. No problem so far!

The next part of my idea what how we could make the service memorable. I decided it would be fun if, instead of a Thanksgiving banquet, we just had turkey sandwiches at the beginning of the service! Made with real roasted turkey of course. I got two ladies to agree to each cook a turkey, and then I decided to cook the other two turkeys in our brand new kitchen at the church. How hard can it be...right?

Tuesday morning came and I arrived early at the church to take the turkeys out of the refrigerator and pop them in the oven. Nope. The turkeys were still not quite thawed, even though they had been in the fridge for five days! Arggghhh! For the next 4 hours I had them in the double sink changing out cold water every 20 minutes until they were completely thawed. I can do this.

Next it was time to put them in the oven. Now, I have never actually cooked a turkey before, but how hard can it really be. They have that great little pop-up thingy that tells you when it is done, so no problem! The only thing I noticed when taking the turkeys out of the packaging was a white bag of gravy mix, which I also assumed must be the giblets as well. No one told me that there was a turkey next down in there!

Now, leaving the giblets and the turkey neck in the turkey is not the end of the world, but it does extend the time of the cooking since the turkey next was still frozen I am sure. I set the ovens on 325 degrees and inserted the turkeys and set the timer for 4 hours. Piece of cake!

Four hours later the little pop-up thingy had not popped, and I was beginning to get worried. This is where my A.d.d. begins to kick in. How long can it take? What if the pop-up doesn't work? How do you test a turkey when the pop-up thingy doesn't pop and you don't have a thermometer?

I called my wife, who was cooking one of the other turkeys at home, and she said that her turkey had only taken about 3 1/2 hours. I was now on 4 1/2. She recommended patience, so I settled in to wait about another hour. 5 minutes later I was back staring through the glass on the front o of the stove, and I could almost hear the turkeys mocking me.

My wife finally brought me a thermometer and I tested the turkey and it looked like it was done. the temperature was over 170 degrees. So out came the first turkey and onto the carving board. The only problem was that when i cut off the breast the bottom of it was still pink and bloody. The inside cavity, where I then found the turkey neck was also still a little bloody. This is not good. At this point, I fell back on my training as a man of God. I panicked! I stuck the breast back onto the turkey the best I could and wrapped it in foil, and placed it back inside the oven. I was having hallucinations about people dying from food poisoning, and wondering why I ever thought I could cook a turkey!

The turkeys finally finished cooking after 6 hours! I had now been working in this kitchen all day as well as setting up tables and chairs and the portable sound system. I pulled the turkeys out and began carving them, being thankful that there were at least two turkeys (the ones being cooked by the women) that would be usable.

Mine weren't really too bad. After I peeled of the top layer of dried out meat, they were edible. My only saving grace was the fact that the meat would be going onto sandwiches. Dry meat is not so noticeable when mixed with mustard or mayonnaise! I finished with literally minutes to spare before people would be arriving. I put on my jacket and tie, and a smile on my face, but something was wrong. I wasn't hungry for turkey!! I had spent all day with turkeys and now I didn't want to eat!

Lesson learned. Leave the turkeys to the experts.

This Thanksgiving I want to extend my profound thanks and admiration for the mothers and grandmothers who spend hours in the kitchen preparing the big meal. I feel that I have at least walked a mile in your shoes this year. We love and appreciate your hard work.

I think that I am going to order pizza next time!