Flying Turkey

For those of you who were there, brace yourselves for the horrendous flashback.
For those of you who ate the wonderfully roasted turkey yesterday (Thanksgiving Monday)…brace yourselves.
For those of you who weren’t there but are reading this because you feel like you really missed out on a great Turkey dinner (which by-the-way was great!)…brace yourselves.

Monday afternoon, everything is going smooth. The turkey was in the oven roasting in the oven, upside down. I did this by accident a few years back and all the juice from the dark meat flowed down and soaked into the turkey breast. It was such a happy accident that I did it deliberately this time round. Anyhoo…potatoes peeling, scalloped potatoes creaming, stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy and yams were all keeping toasty and warm... I felt quite confident and composed compared to my usual frantic, pre-Thanksgiving-dinner-self. Le and Amy had helped me in the afternoon until Esther and Elyssa had come at 3:30 who then assisted me, while Kevin watched from his computer.

5:30 rolls around and I had to get the big bird out of the oven, take the foil off the top, flip it right-side-up so that it could brown and finish by 6. Esther offered to help me get it out of the oven and onto our kitchen island where we could manhandle the turkey better. This was our first mistake.

So each of us grabbed a side of the roasting pan and attempted to lift up this roasting pan holding a 23 lb bird, but a roasting rack and at least 1.5 litres of turkey juice that was to be added to the gravy.

For those of you who have ever tried to carry even a bucket full of water, you will know that liquid is not stable and will indeed tip and slosh out… Now you get the picture?

In one painfully long moment, visions of a turkey-less Thanksgiving flashed before my eyes. All that I can say is that it looked like the “clean & jerk” in slow motion to me. Esther first, then I hauled up the roasting pan, lost balance of it, desperately flung it towards the kitchen island where the turkey then proceeded to fly out of the pan through it’s foil cocoon and skid it’s way down to the other end of the island along with all if it’s juices flooding the countertop and the surrounding floor.

After standing there in utter shock and panic, I finally blurted out a jumble of incoherent words to ask if anyone was burned. This liquid was scalding hot after all. Luckily we were all ok...minus a few socks.

We got a new roasting pan and rack, chucked the turkey back in the oven right-side-up (thank goodness it wasn’t damaged from its touchdown moment), Kevin grabbed some huge bath towels, and just before we proceeded to mop up the mess (you have to remember that all this liquid also contained oil that had rendered off the bird.....eee), the doorbell rang…crap.

Kevin did quite a good job of ushering people to the basement, telling them that the food wasn’t ready yet…hahaha…that was an understatement.

Esther, Elyssa and I were left with the greasy, liquidy mess and after 15 minutes, 6 towels, 4 swiffer-wet cloths and 6 chlorox wipes we managed to get all the grease off the floor and counter.

Needless to say, thank you to the three of them for all their “damage control” help, and the turkey itself was still a vision…

Lessons learned:

1. Upside-down turkey – very yummy.
2. Upside-down flung-across-the-island turkey – still very yummy.
3. Only one person should ever take a turkey out of an oven at a time.
4. I’m now a huge fan and sold on Chlorox wipes and Swiffer wet wipes.
5. Calm-Kim is just a figment of my imagination and Frantic-Kim I will always be.
6. Always make gravy ahead of time because you never know what’ll happen.
7. To feed 35 hungry people (many of whom are still growing teens) you’ll need:

· 1 23 lb turkey
· 1 pack of sausages
· 11 boxes of stuffing
· 6 boxes of scalloped potatoes
· 20 lbs of potatoes
· 3 big bags of corn
· 2 bags of peas
· 1 vat of gravy
· 10 lbs of yams
· 1 ½ bags of mini marshmallows
· 1 L of cranberry sauce
· Tonnes and tonnes of butter, cream, milk and buttermilk
· 1 roll of Chlorox Wipes