The Great Turkey is Looming

I'm in big trouble. I have a 25-pound turkey beast, frozen as hard as the Arctic tundra, laying in my kitchen sink. And it's Christmas Eve. There are so many things going wrong on this...

I bought it at Aldi, on an ambitious day where I was thinking about how good I was going to be this year, weeks before the Christmas deed was happening. I loaded up my Explorer with lots of goodies, stocking stuffers, food of all kinds. The turkey resisted me, even back then. When I opened the hatch to unload my car, the turkey rolled right out and landed on my foot. I think it broke it, but now it's all mended back, crooked of course. Ken ate all the chocolate bars in between then and now, so I sent him back to get more for the stockings. The rest of the food is gone, the family is coming over tomorrow, and all that's left is this monstrosity of a turkey. Frozen solid. 

My sister, the monarch of last-minute culinary miracles (she has eleven children), said to just brine it like Alton Brown does. Which means sticking it in a 5-gallon bucket of really salty water and other mysterious ingredients. That would mean I'd have to google the recipe and then head to the store. Then manage to find a clean bucket.

My mother-in-law's advice does not count. She is the Paula Deen/Nathalie Dupree/Julia Child of middle Georgia. All these years, I should have been deciphering and collecting the encyclopedia of cooking wizardry that floats naturally in her brain, but I was content to simply eat her food and pray that she brought the dressing and gravy. Great pans of it come masterfully through the door, magical potions that drug and put us all into a blissful, dream-filled sleep. We've already had our Norton Christmas with them. How can I learn to make dressing in one phone call?

Then there's my son, whose only skills at cooking include pickup from the wing place or barbaric uses of fire, outside. He said to bring it over and he'd fry it. Then he found out it weighed 25 pounds and began chiding me for buying that much meat, when we all know that my turkeys always leave something to be desired. His fryer won't hold a turkey that big, of course.

So I'm waiting on a Christmas epiphany to save the day. We're all stuffed to the rafters with all this holidaying anyway, so why can't we just order pizza? But then I've got this roast beast that's not going to look pretty in another year, much less take up half my freezer. Oh the trials of decadent, overindulged Americans. I guess this will be today's agenda. I don't think this has a lot to do with baby Jesus. But Merry Christmas ya'll. We really do have so much to be thankful for.