Month Eleven: Cooking A Turkey

For the past 11 months I have been pretty good about cooking dinner and keeping the kitchen stocked with healthy food. But with Chris' 27th birthday and Thanksgiving colliding with final exams this past month, I decided to take the easier route - precooked! I bought a delicious strawberry and red velvet ice cream cake for Chris' birthday. That purchase worked out wonderfully. The precooked Thanksgiving turkey, on the other hand, was not as easy.



No, I was not trying to cook the turkey in an upside down pan placed in a sink full of dirty water. The turkey came frozen. I bought it 36 hours before dinner time. It required 3 to 5 days to thaw. Do you understand the dilemma?

Upon realizing that my bird was still frozen the night before Thanksgiving, I called my mom for emergency help. She told me to place the turkey in a large bowl, fill it with cold water, and leave the water running at a trickle so as to keep the water cold. This would allow the bird to thaw evenly and in about 3 to 4 hours. The only container in my kitchen large enough to hold my turkey was the flimsy, plastic lid from Chris' ice cream cake. Once filled, the edges swelled out from the weight of the water, causing most of the water to run out. Luckily, I plugged the sink prior to filling the lid with water. Not so luckily, I failed to clean the excess icing off of the plastic cake lid. What resulted was a sink full of water mixed with dissolved strawberry frosting and some water-resistant chunks of frosting floating about. The pan was added as a weight to keep the turkey submerged, as turkeys are very bouyant (this reminded me of David's Letterman's past bit entitled "Will it Float"). The turkey thawed in time and it all worked out in the end, but next year, I will be sure to buy the turkey a little bit earlier.