Nice little Thanksgiving break, this one. We -- well, I, actually -- cooked a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, and it came out decently. The turkey was a little dry because I overcooked it a bit, but that's why God created gravy. I was worried that I was going to really botch the turkey, so I'll take a little bit overdone. What happened is, I bought all the food last Wednesday, so as not to try to do it at the last minute. But at the time it was possible I would be cooking for nine adult and four kids, so I bought a 15-pound turkey. However, it ended up being just the immediate fam (including my sister-in-law), so there were only three adults and two children, only one of whom (me) is a really big eater. A 15-pound turkey was now way, way too big.
And that would not have been a problem, except that I somewhat absentmindedly put the turkey in the freezer immediately after I bought it, and I didn't think about thawing it until Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I guess I just figured two days would be adequate time to do so. Au contraire, the internet says that one must thaw a frozen turkey in the refrigerator or an ice bath below 40 degrees, and for a turkey that big, one should allot at least three days to do it in the refrigerator, and an ice bath requires, like a half day, and you have to constantly monitor the temperature.
Now, I bet this is mostly bullshit. We treat raw meat in this country like it's radioactive. I mean, I know the threat of salmonella and other food borne infections are extant, but if they were really as likely as we're led to believe, I suspect meat-eaters would just be getting sick all the time because there's no way everybody who prepares meat follows the safety rules meticulously all the time. Unless you're vegetarian, I bet you've eaten tons of "dangerous" meat in your day, and your body handled it fine.
With that said, I certainly don't want to be the dad who ruined Thanksgiving by poisoning his family. And actually I'm usually quite anal about raw meat. Having worked for four different food service businesses before turning 20, I had to take the same food safety certification course a bunch of times, and it made me paranoid about raw meat. So much so that if I stick a fork into a cooking piece of chicken to see if it's done, I'll scrub the fork before I even put it in the sink on the off-chance somebody will use it before it gets washed. So, I certainly wasn't going to disobey the guidelines about defrosting a turkey.
Anyway, I'll spare you the details, but I utilized a combination of refrigerator and ice bath (waking up at 5:00 am in the process), and got it mostly thawed by the time it had to go into the oven. There was still some ice on the inside around the bone, but the meat all felt soft as deep as I could feel. It took way longer to cook than anticipated though (leading to some temporarily grumpy family members) -- I kept getting really inconsistent measurements from my meat thermometer -- and I think I was overly cautious and cooked it for too long. So, like I said, a little dry, but still decent. I'll do better next year.
I also made mashed potatoes, stuffing, bread rolls, cranberry sauce, gravy, and corn, and all that came out well. The funny thing about Thanksgiving is that the stuff that takes ten minutes to make (stuffing, gravy, bread rolls) is just as good as the stuff that requires actual preparation (turkey, potatoes). We have a lot of leftovers, which is fine -- I don't mind eating it for the next week.
So, Thanksgiving dinner with the family turned out to be good vibes in the end. Here are some other good vibes things in my life right now.
- I'm healthy, and I don't mean that in the macro-sense, like I don't have cancer or ALS (although I am very grateful for that too); I mean, I'm not currently sick. A bug is going around, not Covid, but something else, and also there's Covid, and somehow I've managed to avoid both this holiday break. This woman came into my fitness class the other day and was like, "Ugh... I had to force myself to come in here. I feel like shit," to which the instructor asked the obvious thing, "Why are you here then?" and she replied, "Because I can't sit in my house anymore. I need to do something." Uh, so, that something is exposing everybody else to your miserable illness? It couldn't be a solitary walk through the woods? She was totally wheezing too and not even wearing a mask. I kept my distance from her the entire class. I guess it worked.
- I saw some good movies the past few days. I streamed Weird: The Al Yankovich Story, which I quite enjoyed, and then we went to see Wakanda Forever today as a family. It also was quite enjoyable, other than being way too long (the problem with almost everything these days). I saw somebody online say: "Wakanda Forever -- it felt longer."
- I'm reading a good book right now: The Ninties by Chuck Klosterman. It's basically a book written for and about my generation, so I'm finding it very relatable. One of the first things the author discusses is how important it was in the '90s to seem "authentic," and how kinda weird that was. For some reason, being a poseur or a sellout was among the absolute worst offenses. This is epitomized fictionally by Ethan Hawke (not Ben Stiller) getting the girl in Reality Bites, despite being a miserable jerk, and it was illustrated in real life with bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam hating their own success while simultaneously making conscious decisions to become more successful. The book also has a (somewhat surprisingly) captivating essay on Ross Perot.
- We got a Christmas tree this year -- the first time we've ever had one. We haven't had a Christmas at home since 2015 (when Lil' S2 was 0 years old), so it's not that strange we usually don't have a tree. We got a synthetic one. Real trees are too much work and mess. My parents made the move to a fake tree many years ago. It's one of those things where I thought not having the real thing would matter a lot until I actually tried it and realized it didn't matter at all. It's like doing a crossword puzzle on an app instead of on paper, or using an e-reader, or sitting in front of a gas fireplace. The only problem now is that we have to amass enough decorations to fill out a tree. But Lil' S1 is happy. He's been asking for a tree for a while, so hopefully this will placate him. I mean, it's definitely easier than a dog.
Until next time...
No comments:
Post a Comment