Tuesday, November 28, 2006

A Happy Thanksgiving

I know that this is coming somewhat late, but I did want to comment on what a terrific Thanksgiving we had. We had approximately 30 people at our house on Thanksgiving Day, with dinner being served at 3:00 p.m. A couple of weeks ago Jeff decided to fry the turkeys for our dinner, and I, very skeptically, agreed that he should. In my defense, I've only eaten fried turkey once, and I didn't think that it was that great, so I was a little worried about serving all of our family this "wild card" turkey. I am very traditional when it comes to my holidays and to me there is nothing better than a bird baked in the oven! But Jeff assured me that it would be great. He asked me to purchase several ingredients for the marinade, and being the food junkie that I am, I was VERY interested in the whole process. The only thing I did for him was thaw and wash the birds, since I knew that removing the giblets could be a bit of a queasy task for him. I watched in wonder as this husband of mine, who is so very multi-talented, made a homeade marinade and injected it into the turkeys and put them into the fridge to "soak" overnight. The next day he got all of his tools and ingredients ready, and fried us up some turkey! When the first turkey was brought to me proudly on a cookie sheet, I was shocked. It was black. Black, like, burnt to a crisp kind of black! All of my fears were completely validated at this point and my heart sank a bit as I tried to think how we were going to feed 30 people with the turkey that I had decided to go ahead and bake in the oven "just in case". But Jeff still seemed pretty proud of it and told me to carve it up and see how it tasted. So I did. I was surprised to see that the inside was quite juicy. I gingerly placed a black piece of skin and white turkey meat in my mouth, and was overwhelmingly amazed to find that it was not burnt at all! Rather, it was quite yummy, and I quickly popped in another piece, just to be sure. So, we were back on again and I was once again astonished at the many talents of Jeff.

As the three o'clock hour rolled around, people started arriving, and my kitchen counter was filled with an array of yummy food. Everybody grabbed a plate and found a seat and the eating commenced! It was a great success. Afterwards, my mother, bless her soul, cleaned up the whole kitchen and carved up MY turkey that hadn't even gotten done in time for dinner, and stored all the leftovers in the freezer. We had people in just about every room of the house, chatting, watching football, and a large group in the dining room playing cards. The last guests left around 10:00 p.m.!!! It was a blast! We will definitely do it again, and I will definitely let Jeff fry the turkey. Everyone thought it was great.

In the middle of the evening we paused to celebrate with Jack on the great accomplishment of his first birthday. He was a bit tired and overwhelmed at the number of people in his house. When everyone got together and sang Happy Birthday, he cried. I guess you just have to put yourself in his little baby shoes and think that maybe the prospect of thirty people all looking at you at once and singing loudly could possibly be a scary thing. But he got over it and had a great time opening up his presents. Thanks to Jeff's dad, we have pictures!

Jeff and I have so many things to be thankful for: God's love and grace to us, our marriage, our children, our health. Over all I think that this year our biggest blessing has been our family. We were so pleased and thankful to have them all here with us.


Jeff with his "Magic Turkey Fryer"



Jason called it a "Flaming Caulderon of Death"



Aunt Mona




Mom saving the day! (thanks mom!)



Aunt Jill & Uncle Gary



Not so happy 1st birthday



Now he is interested!



Fun toys!



Jack with his cousins



Mommy joins in



Cousins Blake & Rachel with Mom Beth



"The Rat Pack"
Our sincere apologies to Uncle Phil....

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Fried Turkey - NOTHING SAY LOVIN' like that. YUMMY. I know that blacken stuff causes cancer and whatnot, but you can not stop eating that black stuff on the outside. TASSSS TIE!