In an effort to avoid last years temper tantrum over giblets in stuffing , I rushed home from work on Wednesday to PREpare my contributions to the Thanksgiving dinner that we would be assembling up at Honey's Dad's house.  Honey volunteered us for the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and I threw in the fresh Cranberry-Orange Relish.  I finish the Cranberry-Orange Relish on Tuesday.  I had the cream cheese hidden in the back of the lunch meat drawer for the Roast Garlic Mashed Potatoes.  My mission for Wednesday afternoon was to sauté the onions and celery for the stuffing, make the broth out of the giblets for the stuffing and gravy, and to massage the turkey with butter, olive oil, and seasonings.

Honey had taken the turkey out of the deep freezer the week before on Friday.  It had now been sitting in the basement fridge keeping the holiday football beer company for six days.  At barely 2:30pm I ran into the house grabbed the turkey from the basement fridge and headed to the kitchen to put my evil plan in motion.  I filled the stock pot with carrots, celery, onion, parsley, some water, a container of turkey broth, and some sprigs of fresh thyme and sage from the garden.  All I needed were the giblets from the turkey.  I took the turkey out of the shopping bag.  It sure did feel hard but then they wrap them so tightly in plastic.  I put the turkey into the clean sink and started to cut the plastic wrap off.  FROZEN!!!  It's still FROZEN! 

How am I going to get the giblets out!?!?  Don't panic.  You still have two hours to pull this off.  I'll just run some lukewarm water over the bird.  How frozen can it be six days out of the freezer?  Five minutes on the front side . . . .five minutes on the back side. . . . . I think the leg moved!  I can barely get a couple of fingers into the cavity and I feel the plastic giblet bag.  We'll just concentrate that water around the legs and the cavity and we'll have those giblets out in no time.  Five more minutes and those legs are opening just a tad more.  Maybe I can squeeze my hand in there?  I'll just position those legs straight up in the air for easy cavity access.  (anyone notice how this whole paragraph is oddly [Ok, very oddly] sexual?   I'm making a foray into the new field of turkey gynecology.)

I have the turkey positioned with its legs and cavity facing upward.  With minimal hand contortion I should be able to extract the bag of giblets.  It's a tight squeeze.  I'll just push a little harder.  SSSSSSQUAWOOOOSSSSSSSHHHHHHH!!!!!  "Aaaaarrrrrrrggggghhhhh!  I'M BLIND!  I CAN'T BREATHE! EEEEWWWW, Eeeeewwwww, I got raw turkey juice water in my eyes, nose, and mouth!!!"  I try to turn my head and wipe the juice out of my eyes on my now soaked shirt.  God, what a mess! 

This is what happens when you don't pay attention in science class (it may also be covered in turkey gynecology doctoral training).  I believe the law of physics reads:  When the mass of the human hand displaces the now water filled space in the turkey cavity, the action of displacement creates a geyser effect of contaminated water spraying everything within a three foot radius.  I think it's Murphy's Law that covers that my hand is now stuck in the turkey which is in the sink and even while stretching my body sideways the dry kitchen towels are six inches beyond my reach.

Eh, who needs vision?  I can feel my fingers curled around the prize bag of giblets.  I just have to coax them (and my hand) out of the cavity.  I have an hour and a half to complete my mission.  Five more minutes of coaxing and the giblets are floating merrily in the simmering broth.  A quick rinsing of the turkey (and my face) and I can pat it dry (the turkey and my face) and put it in the roasting pan (the turkey, not my face).  There will be no massage for the turkey.  Its skin is still frozen to its body.  The best I can do is a quick moisturizing with olive oil and a nap in the upstairs fridge where it's not quite so cold. 

A half an hour before Honey is due home, I've retrieved the giblets from the broth and have them minced so finely that you can't even tell them apart from the spices in the sautéed onions, and celery.  Now all we have to do is assemble and stuff the next morning.

Honey coordinates the cooking time with his dad for the next morning.  We'll have to have the bird stuffed and ready for travel to the oven my 6:30am.  Honey's dad also informs us that he's already peeled the potatoes, so he'll be providing the mashed potatoes for the dinner.  Part two of my evil plan falls to the wayside.  I'll just have to find another use for the cream cheese in the back of the lunch meat drawer.  The only part left to my evil plan is gravy from the pan drippings.  The rest of them can enjoy their brown gravy from a box, but it's just not a proper turkey dinner for me if there isn't turkey gravy from the pan drippings.

We start the day early.  The bird is stuffed and in Honey's Dad's oven by 6:30am.  We go back home, take a nap, then shower and get dressed.  We arrive back at Dad's by 11:30am.  The turkey is on a platter ready to be carved.  The pan is empty and already cleaned.  I swallow my disappointment and resign myself to having brown gravy from a box.  Maybe I'll be able to have some of my families traditional fixings when we travel to Ohio at the end of December.  I pick through my food.  Honey looks over and says, "this is probably the best batch of stuffing you've ever made."  It makes it easier to forget gravy from a box. 

Just a bit of clarification to those who may think my evil plans are meant to hurt my darling Honey.  In the beginning of our relationship it was Honey who stated he wasn't a picky eater.  The only thing he confessed to not eating was mayonaise, though coleslaw and its dressing were acceptable.  He also mentioned cheesecake.   Since I wasn't such a fan of mayonaise, though tartar sauce and potato salad were acceptable, we were pretty much a culinary match.  I respected his boundaries by not making things with mayonaise.  If I had a taste for cheesecake, I would order a piece while out. 

So for years I would cook the way I always had and he would rave about my stuffed chicken and my roast garlic mashed potatoes.  He stayed away from my pan gravy but then he also mentioned he wasn't big on sauces.  So I made the gravy seperate and if he wanted some it was available but not forced on him.  It was only after he started helping me with last years' stuffing that he mentioned not liking giblets.  It was around that time that he mentioned not liking anything with cream cheese. 

I have two problems with this whole situation.  The first is that he loved my cooking until he saw what was in it.  I'll call this changing the rules in the middle of the game.  The second problem is one of manners.  When I'm invited to his (or anyone's) family's meals, I will try anything that I am served.  I respect their traditions and if I come across something that I don't care for I won't eat it again.  I would expect the same if someone came to a dinner I was hosting.  So, I resent being volunteered to provide a part of a meal, then being told how I should prepare it.  If you don't like something I make, don't ask me to make it.

I love Honey, but I'm not going to change the way I've been cooking something that he's been enjoying because he's discovered a forbidden ingredient.  He has a mental block when it comes to certain words.  Giblets and cream cheese are two of them.  He won't try guacamole because he doesn't like the word.  He didn't want to try a Sara Lee pie because he read that there was rhubarb in it.  He doesn't like the word rhubarb even though he's never eaten it in his life. 

I bought the pie and baked it for myself figuring I could take the rest of it to work and share it with my co-workers.  While it was cooling, Honey cut himself a piece because it smelled so good.  He wouldn't let me take the pie to work because he's discovered that rhubarb isn't that bad in small amounts when it's mixed with berries and apples and other fruits that he likes.

This year in addition to being thankful for all the wonderful people in my life, I was also able to survive another Black Friday.  This year we were more organized and the people were actually friendly for the first four hours.  We were rewarded for working that day with pizza for lunch.

It was only after a barage of complaints toward the end of my shift that I turned to the HR guy and said, "remember the good old days when Black Friday used to mean people would lose all their money and jump to their deaths?"  We all looked wistfully to the sky daydreaming.  Yea, I know it's sick but not any sicker than having to get out of bed early to be abused by the spending masses.

tags: thanksgiving  turkey  giblets  food  creamcheese  deception  humor  love  cooking  working  black=friday  shopping  

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