The turkey did exactly what it was supposed to do. On Wednesday night we brined the thing in salt water, and while stuffing it into a stockpot in the fridge felt strangely Dahmeresque, it was definitely worth all the creepy extra effort. Everyone at dinner made a point to say that the white meat wasn’t too dry for once. I was just glad that I didn’t kill anyone, though I guess there was little chance of that happening, since I’m so paranoid when I cook poultry that I might as well be wearing a hazmat suit. But once I got past the raw moments it was a great deal of fun to baste the thing with butter every half hour. I was prepared, in fact, to do it for the twenty or thirty hours they tell you it takes to cook a stuffed turkey, except I failed to notice that my fancy brining recipe cooks the whole thing in two hours. Or I suppose I did notice, but I willfully ignored it because, damn it, I wanted it to be long and drawn-out and heroic. It was supposed this whole huge thing where you put a turkey in the oven and then you weep bitterly for five hours and then the oven door pops open and a miracle occurs. But no, it was done at 3 pm and then I had to throw a towel over it like a massage therapist. Oh well, it was still worth it.
Now we’ve been making a great effort to not eat pies, which is easier when there isn’t pie around. Some of this has been accomplished just by throwing out some of the pie. But it’s okay when I made the pie lovingly with my own hands, right? I’m trying to think of it as purely an administrative task. It helps that Chris threw a film festival wake for Robert Altman today and a bunch of people stopped by to watch McCabe and Mrs. Miller and 3 Women and The Long Goodbye and A Wedding. And we offered leftover pie for all to eat while they mourned and tried to follow overlapping dialogue. It worked out well, I think.
One of my favorite tricks with Altman movies is to turn on the subtitles while watching them on DVD. I figured this out while watching “Gosford Park” for the second time. During the overlapping dialogue parts, the subtitled lines tend to be the ones that actually carry important plot information (which I didn’t catch the first time I saw it in the theater).
Occasionally when I read your blog, I have a brief existential crisis because I’m sure I must have written this even though I have no memory of doing so. This was one of these times, because we totally brined our turkey for the first time ever this year, and used the Martha Stewart “bathe that sucker in butter” turkey recipe. And ours too, was fantabulous, but sadly there were no Robert Altman movies. So I guess you’re not me after all.
You can be a hero when brining if you put that big bird on the Weber grill with low heat. Every fifteen minutes throw wet wood chips on the coals and every thirty or fourty minutes turn the turkey over. If it’s cold outside, drink beer while you work. This is the method that Martha Stewart’s husband used and that finally led to their divorce. The result has delicious at the Thanksgiving table but even more profound with sandwiches or soups that you might make with leftovers.
Next time, to save yourself the work of brining, just buy a kosher turkey. It’s essentially the same thing (they are salted for kosher reasons), they taste great and the white meat is NOT DRY.
Nashville! You gotta watch Nashville!
Nashville is good for a day when you’re not watching five other Altman films!
I thought you threw out the pie a long time ago.
Hi Ron! How are things at Panera?