Thanksgiving Dinner

This year was my first experience cooking Thanksgiving Dinner. And I chose to kind of take responsibility over the turkey. Because really what is better for someone who doesn't have any cooking experience but to tackle the main centerpiece of the biggest holiday relating to food? It's like tackling the English Channel when your only swimming experience has been passing the swim test at the local pool.

So the big turkey experience actually started the night before when we got the turkey. Slight issue number 1: the usage of kilograms in Ireland BUT I had prepared for this (spent too much time looking up conversions) and had a handy little chart ready for me at the local supermarket. Success 1: The roommates and I purchased a turkey and got it back to our apartment.

Slight issue number 2: Defrosting. Since we got it the night before, according to the handy websites I consulted it was wayy too late to consider using the traditional refrigerator method. So we left it in the fridge until the next morning when we were going to do option 2: defrost by cold water. At 7:30 I was up and got the turkey out of the fridge and then realized we had another issue. Slight issue 3: the size of an 11 lb turkey. We had no kind of cooler or large bowls. I was not going to be deterred however and found...a plastic bucket in our bathroom. You know the kind that usually collects water or you put mops in. I washed the bucket out and put the turkey in. And who knew turkeys float? Sooo I balanced a plate on top of the turkey to weigh it down.

                                                                THE CONTRAPTION


Now the handy cooking website advised me that I had to replace the cold water on the half hour. Which I did...for five hours. At 12:45, the turkey I believed was defrosted but I really had no idea. I got one of my roommates into the kitchen and we opened the turkey from the wrapper. And then this happened....

FALSE. But it would have been great if it did. No, but we did play with the turkey for a while. We may or may not have moved it's wings and talked to each other in turkey voices. Anyway we realized that it was not all fun and games and there was giblets that needed to be removed.

Except we weren't quite sure what a giblet consisted of. We looked it up on Google, and there was a lovely picture involving all possible turkey giblets. So I took one for the team and stuck my hand up that turkey and pulled out some organ or another. And we thought we were good, until we realized that the long thing was a neck and needed to come out. Conversation: "It looks like a bone, you wouldn't remove a bone right?" "I dunno, it looks like it is that long thing in the giblet picture." We ended up pouring like five cups of steaming water into the turkey. And I tried and tried to get that neck out but it wasn't coming out.

And then all of sudden, there was the shrieking girls moment as my roommate pulled the neck out. "Oh my god, oh my god, what do I do?!?" "Ahh I dunno, okay, okay, you pull the trash over and I'll throw it in" "Oh my god, this is so gross!!" And I whipped the trash can over and we threw it in there and shut the lid really quickly and shuddered for a couple of minutes. She never really got over it. And it gave my other roommate a lovely surprise when she opened the trash can later that day.

We had one more giblet removing experience. After this, I convinced another roommate to baste it. I was still recovering from the whole giblet experience. I kept repeating that my hands were so cold and I could feel turkey innards, like it was a traumatic experience.  We got the turkey into the oven and managed to cook the thing. (My one roommate had suggested naming it....until she was the one who pulled the neck out.)
We had a full thanksgiving dinner with turkey, mashed potatoes, carrots and string beans, stuffing, apple pie (homemade) and the traditional brownies. And you know what, it was really good.

After we sufficiently recovered from our turkey coma, one of the bars on campus was showing the Saints-Cowboys game so we all went down for a half. I then attempted to explain to our German friend how American football was played. I also got to talk with the fam back home as well. Overall, not a bad Thanksgiving.