The Turkey that Keeps on Giving

Saturday was wonderful--I went into New York and took in a matinee performance of Jude Law as Hamlet on Broadway (excellent, and not just because it was Jude Law). I then made it back to Princeton for an tasty fall dinner with friends (acorn squash!), and got over to my fellow Oregon fan's room at the Old Graduate College to catch the second half and two overtimes of the incredible Duck victory over Arizona. Memo to Arizona fans: don't rush the field before the game actually ends. Civil War, here we come! We celebrated by watching the contraband video "I Love My Ducks" and then I moved down to the D-Bar in the basement to catch the second set of the Turkish rock band from New Brunswick, Istavrit Istanbul. Made me wish I was in the City of Seven Hills right now...

High on Ducks and Turkey, I got home and realized that a different kind of fowl awaited me. This Turkey was the main course for the Woodrow Wilson School Thanksgiving Potluck and I had volunteered to cook it for the next day's festivities. The 21-pounder had been dropped off at my house around noon...completely frozen. Thank you, Butterball. I did not know at the time they have a hotline, but I do know my way around Google pretty well. Search: how to thaw a turkey asap! Naive little me. It takes 5 hours PER POUND to thaw a turkey in the refrigerator, and here I was, a mere 15 hours from serving time with a rock of turkey ice on my hands. Leaving it out on the counter is bad for the quality of the meat, and you cannot just stick the thing in water overnight and go to bed while it warms up. Oh no. You have to CIRCULATE the water EVERY HALF HOUR, gradually warming the temperature to help thawing progress and prevent the growth of bacteria. Joy of joys. The Office and 30 Rock kept me up for one hour, then I started cheating a little. I would nap for 45 minutes, then circulate the water. I eventually pried out the bag of innards, wrenched the frozen neck from the inside of the big cavity, and Hallelujah, praise the Lord and pass the ammunition--by 8 am, the thing was ready to be dressed by a very tired yours truly.

Dump a little celery, carrots, parsley and onion in the cavity, spices and herbs and garlic all over, and put that turkey in the oven. You only need to adjust the temperature and baste every couple hours (and in between bastings, I took a nap--and had a group meeting for a school project). In the end, voila! That bird came out so pretty! I'm sure I have a picture, which I will share eventually. Greeted by cheers in the Robertson basement, the turkey was demolished by several scores of hungry graduate students. Nothing left but bones!

The juices in the pan also made for an excellent gravy and the grease that accidentally spilled in the bottom of the oven made for--a week later--a not-so excellent grease fire. This evening, as one of the roommates was preheating the oven for her dinner, smoke started pouring out of the oven. Flames in the oven pan quickly followed. Whoops. Forgot to run the self-clean feature. Google will tell you that water will NOT help put out a grease fire, and this was useful information. However, the fire could not be contained by the pot lid, which was the other suggestion. 9-1-1 it was, and oh, the turnout was huge. By the time the four police cars (Public Safety, Princeton Police...), two police SUVs, two fire engines, and a facilities van had arrived, the smoke alarm had stopped beeping, and the fire had put itself out. Disaster averted. The cops and firemen were very nice...let's hope they are equally as nice if they get called to quiet us down at my roommate's birthday party this Friday...