Turning turkey to new year's resolution
It's funny how words come back to haunt you. Last week I mentioned my lack of cooking skills. Then, due to circumstances beyond my control, I ended up doing an inordinate amount of cooking for Thanksgiving.
Sometimes you have to step in and fill a void. I guess that's what you could call my cooking. It was nothing fancy — just a few pies and some vegetables, mashed potatoes, and oh yeah, turkeys. Plural.
That's right — three turkeys, to be exact. I didn't have to cook all three birds. That would have been the simple part. I had the privilege and adventure of de-boning the big birds.
I cooked one turkey Wednesday afternoon — and it was a big one. I wrestled it into the oven in Lucy-and-Ethel fashion and the bird cooked without further mishap.
Patience not being one of my virtues, I began the de-boning process before the bird was cool. You ever notice when your hands are full how things happen? The minute I was up to my elbows in turkey is when the phone rang, the dog needed to go out, and someone needed me to find an important piece of paper immediately.
As I scrubbed my hands for the 10th time and whined about blisters from the hot bird, I vowed never to de-bone another turkey. Thursday morning what did I find myself doing? That's right — another bird.
Some would say I have trouble saying "no." Most who know me also know I'm an over-achiever. I must have been trying to set some kind of record and Thursday evening I de-boned the third and final bird.
By this time I had it down to a science — rip off the wings but keep the big meaty part. Pull off the drumsticks and hide them until later when you can throw them away. (After all, who wants to stand around and search for toothpick-sized bones?) The rest was easy.
As you can probably guess, eating turkey wasn't a high priority after spending the better part of a day up to my armpits in turkey bones.
In a somewhat unrelated matter, we decided to get ahead of the game Sunday afternoon and put up our Christmas tree. My decorating skills rate right up there with my cooking skills so I supervised.
I thought I'd help by plugging stuff in. That was fine until I plugged in a decoration that was supposed to light up. It popped and sparked, caused all the tree lights to go out, turned my fingers black, and burned a hole in my sock.
That's about the time I declared the Thanksgiving holiday officially over, skipped ahead, and began making New Year's resolutions. Namely, boneless meat for Thanksgiving dinner and stick to supervising instead of helping with decorations and cooking.
— DONNA BERNHARDT
