Let's Call a Turkey a Turkey
LET’S CALL A TURKEY A TURKEY
Early on Thanksgiving morning I came downstairs to put the turkey in the oven. Elaine had asked me to do this, she having spent most of the previous day, while I was out carpentering, getting things ready, making pies and so forth. She said she’d leave me instructions. On the counter was a note. ‘Sweetie Pie’, it began. Notes containing directions for me from her always begin with ‘Sweetie Pie.’ It’s kind of a softening agent. This one continued: ‘Pre-heat the oven to 350. Rinse the turkey well, inside and out, with cold water, and pat dry thoroughly. Carefully put the stuffing in the bird; don’t cram it. Place the turkey in the roasting pan, breast side up. Rub it liberally with olive oil and this packet of herbs and put it in the oven’
I do enjoy comprehensive directions and settle comfortably into a task so well defined that the absence of even a passing familiarity is no obstacle. I turned on Public Radio, filled the kettle and set it on the stove, and set the oven on ‘bake’ at 350. I retrieved the turkey from the refrigerator—even though she hadn’t told me that was where I’d find it. At over 25 pounds it more than filled the sink basin and I concluded right away that the bathtub would be a much easier place in which to accomplish the task of ‘rinsing well inside and out and drying thoroughly.’ On my way to the bathroom, cradling the bird to my undershirt, I chuckled at this ever-mounting evidence of how easily a woman’s work can be made more efficient by the application of a man’s natural capacity for problem solving. I put the turkey in the tub reflecting all the while on how much more sense this would have made if, when in the shower myself a few minutes earlier, I had simply washed us both. I made a note to streamline this whole process next Thanksgiving, not only my own substantive stage of Thanksgiving dinner preparation but also my wife’s subsidiary efforts the day before. Doubtless I could save her a lot of time, time during which she might find other useful things to do.
As expected, the tub was the perfect place and the massage showerhead, fitting each cavity perfectly and set on stimulating, brought clarity to ‘rinse well inside and out.’ I quickly discovered that paper towel, wet and dissolving in pieces inside the bird, was not the thing with which to ‘dry thoroughly’ but a hand towel, the one I’d used earlier while shaving, worked perfectly.
Back in the kitchen with a squeaky-clean bird I fixed myself a cup of coffee. I love this time of day, early morning, not yet light, that first cup, insightful and timely broadcast news and analysis, alone and engaged simultaneously in critical food preparation and consideration of the world’s difficulties.
I focused once more on the turkey. It had 2 holes; doubtless some among you already know that. Nonetheless, I’m sure you can appreciate that, given my unfamiliarity and my well-founded assumption that the ‘instructions’ to Sweetie Pie were less than thorough, I was cautious. A large hole was apparent in one end and a smaller opening at the other. It occurred to me that it was not obvious which was the front and which the back. Just as quickly, though, I realized that it didn’t matter either for the instructions said nothing about installing the turkey frontwards. I put the question out of my mind. I did wonder, however, if the small hole at one end was a continuation of the opposite larger hole, if I could expect the stuffing pushed in to one end to eventually emerge from the other. If so, I reasoned, I’d close up the small end somehow and work from the larger orifice, into which I could more readily fit my fist full of stuffing. With a spelunker’s curiosity I turned off the lights, it was still pre-dawn, and stuck a flashlight in one end. No corresponding illumination could be seen at the other and neither did the reverse process produce any results other than to lead me to conclude that I would have to stuff both ends separately and this I accomplished, as directed, without cramming. Still, the bird was quite full, at both ends, full enough that the little flap at the small end would not stay closed and the legs at the other would not stay together. I skewered the small end flap closed with a lobster pick and remembered from long ago that the legs of my mother’s roasted turkeys had been tied together with string and that this roasted cordage was removed from the small ends of the drumsticks before the bird was placed on the table. I searched around for some string but wondered before I’d concluded my search if perhaps a special string was required, one that wouldn’t ignite in the oven, asbestos string maybe. Unsure, I had the urge to go upstairs and deliver a withering assessment of her woefully incomplete instructions. “These are akin,” I was prepared to argue, “to my leaving a note for you that said, ‘Sweetie Pie, finish building this wall by nailing each stud as required,’ without even explaining to you what a stud is and how would you know otherwise, having never encountered one.” Not sure that was exactly the message I wanted to deliver I stifled the impulse.
A length of something that looked like tendon protruded from the end of each drumstick and seemed to be fashioned into a kind of loop. I concluded that this had been some sort of barbaric hobble visited on the unfortunate bird back at the aviary. One thing was certain; tendons are not appetizing, and these were particularly unsightly. I set about removing them, but a knife wouldn’t touch them. While impressed with its sinewy resistance I was no less determined. Retrieving a pair of aviation snips from the cellar my eyes fell upon my orderly assortment of galvanized fasteners and there, in the person of a 3-inch deck screw and with a cordless drill, I perceived a solution to the vexing problem of keeping the birds legs together. Buoyed by my resourcefulness, I hastened back to the problem bird, made short work of the tendons with the snips, and screwed the troublesome legs together with the deck screw.
Nestling the bird in the barely adequate roasting pan I covered it liberally with olive oil, lubricating every inch, every gentle fold, each appealing crease, every nook and, in particular, the crannies, and enjoying myself altogether too much. I rubbed in the aromatic packet of herbs she’d assembled and while admiring my handiwork I reviewed the instructions. ‘Breast side up’ leapt out at me. I turned to look more carefully at the bird.
There was a time, I think not long ago, when an invitation to place a thing breast side up would have been one to which I’d have responded flawlessly, with enthusiasm and with no small degree of confidence. Now I was confused. I held its tiny wings out to the left and right and tried to imagine it high stepping around, upright, in the barnyard. Whether a turkey is breast side up is not as readily apparent, I observed, as might be the case given a more familiar species. I worried. A labor of love, a response to a note that begins as appealingly as ‘Sweetie Pie,’ can sour if it ends with a failure to have followed instructions, instructions whose composition is judged by the person responsible for having crafted them to be comprehensive and thorough, a failure like an upside-down turkey.
I reasoned that I would have to get the thing out of the pan to be sure. There only being two ways to have put it in the pan, other than by standing it on its head, whichever end that was, I knew there was at least as good a chance I had installed it breast side up as breast side down, but a 50/50 chance wasn’t good enough. The prospect of her opening the oven door and wondering aloud if I could not do anything right, perhaps even with a reference to breasts, perhaps with others by then in attendance, loomed large.
25 pounds is a lot to hold aloft by those tiny, well-oiled wings. Were it not for the rough texture of the applied herbs I’d have had no purchase at all. Held at arm’s length the legs, screwed together and sticking straight, out offered no clue as to which direction was up. I stuck two shish kebab skewers in the surface which, at the moment, was up, as imaginary legs, and grabbed the wings in such a way that the bird articulated with its new legs pointed downward. Holding on hard to the little slippery wings I struggled to hold the big bird aloft while trying to imagine it strutting about the barnyard un-hobbled, breasts correctly aligned, on its stainless-steel prostheses. Basil and oregano are ineffective aggregates. I was relying on the rosemary and thyme to keep the bird in my grasp, and it worked well for a few seconds.
When the turkey hit the floor, it landed on its new feet next to the cat who, such acrobatics being its second nature, was unimpressed. The steel legs buckled as the skewers punctured the linoleum, the points at which each bend occurred becoming, effectively, knees. I retained a measure of control and, managing to keep it from falling over, was able to ascertain that the bird was, in fact upside down, that the position in which I had installed the bird in the pan had, indeed, been breast side up. I had been, not unexpectedly, right all along.
Elaine came down a little later. She eyed the skewers still sticking out of the linoleum and around which had spread a significant little oil slick. These were to be my visual aid as I delivered a mild rebuke concerning the need, henceforth, for more thorough instructions. The cordless drill and snips were on the counter, and I was graciously prepared to make her a gift of these after having explained their culinary usefulness and after having offered other helpful hints intended to improve her performance and efficiency in the kitchen.
As I write I am down here in the cellar with my dog and with the drill and the snips and my orderly assortment of fasteners and have been advised that I can come up around noon.