1022 The Producer.

by

I’m tired. All the way down to my soul.

I cooked a turkey for the first time in my life today. My dad didn’t die when he ate it, and he said it was good, so it was a success. I don’t like turkey very much unless it’s lunch meat, so I didn’t have any. Dorothy liked the parts I dropped on the floor when I tried to move it. It all disintegrated when I tried to pick it up. I didn’t know that would happen. Whenever I’ve seen turkeys laying around, food style, they seem pretty structurally sound. Maybe it was something I did when I cooked it. I didn’t have any instruction other than what my mom told me over the phone in, like, 2 minutes. Everything else I just guessed at based on 30 some odd years of hearing arguments in the kitchen on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

You know the family system is in total breakdown when I am left to my own devices in the kitchen with complex tasks. It’s not that I can’t follow instructions, it’s that I have a different understanding of words from other people, but you can’t ask a book for clarification. After a certain point I just kind of run on instinct. The thing is though that I like food when it is basically ruined by the standards of most people. I like food dry most of all. Meats need to be cooked all the way till they are not moist at all. Also they need to be as oil free as they can be. Not just because I don’t like greasy stuff, but also because it makes me sick. Literally sick.

Like, if taco meat has that pooling grease that it usually has if it’s homade I have to be sure to mix it with something that will absorb it. Beans will work usually and they almost always come with. It’s kind of like how I can’t drink whole milk, but if it’s poured on cereal it doesn’t bother me, as long as there’s not enough to pool up. Anyway, just about the time everyone starts to complain about food is when I’m pleased with it. This year the ham was forgotten and got overcooked to the point of looking like some kind of wood. I had several slices since ham is my holiday food, but then it got thrown out because everyone thought it was ruined. I would have totally taken it home if anyone had asked. >:| The last couple of holidays they found this thin cut ham that’s like the ultimate perfect ham. I try to get the edge bits if I can, but the inside parts are okay too because it dosn’t hold moisture very well. I’ve made it very clear that this is the kind of ham we should have forever. It’s had an encore so I guess my pathetic begging worked.

I also like lumpy potatoes. I like beef gravy or brown gravy but we always have turkey or chicken kind. I’ve given up on that fight. I’m never going to win it.

16 Comments

You are my dream cook. If I could, I would either hire you or marry you. Alas, I’m broke and deemed not marriage material. But one can dream, yeah?

P.S., I want Thomas, the twins, and Carol’s tits in my bed.

Sounds like the turkey may have been overly dry, I reccomend covering the bird with foil for most of the cooking time followed by removing for the last hour or so. This helps prevent it from getting too dried out. Also you can’t go wrong with following the almighty Alton Brown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaKOLGIcMGE

Let me know if you would like any more tips. Love the comic!

-KM

I’d guess the turkey was overcooked. Generally meat doesn’t fall off the bones (or apart) unless it’s been cooked too long. If you do it again, use a turkey bag and check out Alton Brown as previously mentioned.

I did use a bag. I followed all the instructions on the box of bags.

Same thing happened here this year. It means that it was either overcooked or cut too soon; the collagen that holds the meat together and to the bone melts during cooking, and if it drips out (during either cooking or carving), there’s nothing to keep it together. If the meat wasn’t that dry, it probably means that it should have rested another 3-5 minutes before cutting.

When it comes to mashed potatoes, lumps don’t bother me. But unlike most of my family, I only put pepper and butter on my mashed taters. No gravy – I’ll put a little on my turkey, but not on the taters.

The folks at my local KFC think I’m nuts – “No gravy? That’s the best part!” No thanks.

I threw a Cornish hen into my slow cooker a few days ago and let it cook on low for probably…six hours? I love it when the meat is so soft that it just falls off the bone.

I’m a lazy cook.

“I also like lumpy potatoes. ” “My mouth knows a raisin from a lump of cream of wheat. Then she started putting raisins in my mashed potatoes. Tryin’ a kill me off.” If you recognize this, you are officially old. My nephew lives outside the city limits near a big wheat field. A huge….gaggle of geese would land in it and periodically leave en mass-heading right for the stratosphere-way high. His son asked if he could shoot at a goose from the backyard. My nephew said sure, you go shoot a goose-figuring a shotgun wouldn’t even reach that high. There was a shot, a whistling sound, and a thud, and my nephew was on the phone to his mother,”Mom, how you cook a goose?”

I don’t care if my mashed potatoes are lumpy or not, but if they come with cheese melted on top or mixed in I’ll be super happy… and now i want some. O_o Why is it the middle of the night?

I swear by soaking the turkey first. It helps to cook all the way through without drying out. Once you’ve got the turkey thawed, you heave it into one of those cheap beer coolers and pour in a can of chicken broth and a half cup of salt for every gallon of water you pour in. Once the turkey is completely submerged, you let it soak overnight. The brine really helps get rid of the gamey flavor too. Then, in the morning, you cook it like you did the last one. Also, once the turkey is out of the oven you probably want to let the meat rest for an hour before cutting it. That way the moisture doesn’t immediately pour out when you slice it.

Hmm… you need zinc to digest fat. I knew that, found I felt better when I had fats, and also found a high-protein diet seemed to do me a lot of good. But then it became obvious it was only some sources of protein; meats, and high-meat high-fat diet was not helping my stomach. I looked online for natural sources of zinc, and found they were exactly the meats which did me the most good. So now I’m on 55mg zinc a day, less protein, fat seems less important too (remarkably), I’m starting to feel better both generally and in my stomach, *and* I’ve found with all that zinc I can have milk and cheese which I thought I was seriously allergic to!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.