The turkey did exactly what it was supposed to do. On Wednesday night we brined the thing in salt water, and while stuffing it into a stockpot in the fridge felt strangely Dahmeresque, it was definitely worth all the creepy extra effort. Everyone at dinner made a point to say that the white meat wasn’t too dry for once. I was just glad that I didn’t kill anyone, though I guess there was little chance of that happening, since I’m so paranoid when I cook poultry that I might as well be wearing a hazmat suit. But once I got past the raw moments it was a great deal of fun to baste the thing with butter every half hour. I was prepared, in fact, to do it for the twenty or thirty hours they tell you it takes to cook a stuffed turkey, except I failed to notice that my fancy brining recipe cooks the whole thing in two hours. Or I suppose I did notice, but I willfully ignored it because, damn it, I wanted it to be long and drawn-out and heroic. It was supposed this whole huge thing where you put a turkey in the oven and then you weep bitterly for five hours and then the oven door pops open and a miracle occurs. But no, it was done at 3 pm and then I had to throw a towel over it like a massage therapist. Oh well, it was still worth it.
Now we’ve been making a great effort to not eat pies, which is easier when there isn’t pie around. Some of this has been accomplished just by throwing out some of the pie. But it’s okay when I made the pie lovingly with my own hands, right? I’m trying to think of it as purely an administrative task. It helps that Chris threw a film festival wake for Robert Altman today and a bunch of people stopped by to watch McCabe and Mrs. Miller and 3 Women and The Long Goodbye and A Wedding. And we offered leftover pie for all to eat while they mourned and tried to follow overlapping dialogue. It worked out well, I think.
