Gobble Gobble

This year I am cooking my first turkey. It makes me feel very grown up and married (in a good way). Dup's parents are coming in from Virginia and we are having Thanksgiving Dinner at our place. Our kitchen isn't that bad for a NY apartment. It's actually quite open. I'm sort of looking forward to just being in the kitchen and cooking all day by myself. It's not unlikely that I will be completely drunk by noon.

Dup is going into the city to meet the folks at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and also to stand in line to buy tickets to a Broadway show at the TKTS Booth. I much prefer my task of staying home and wrestling a bird to doing either of those things. I can't believe they are actually going to the parade. I would rather pour hot lava into my ear canal. Dup's mom told me that she is especially excited because this year they are going to have a Mr. Potato Head Balloon. This is to celebrate the fact that people are eating potatoes again. Even though the potato is packed with evil carbs, people re-recognize that it does have nutritional value and is worth consuming now and again. Upon hearing this news, I celebrated by eating an entire plate of fries.

We got our turkey from this organic farm in Upstate New York called Dines Farms. They have a booth in the open market which is at the park by our house every Saturday. We always buy chicken breast and chicken sausage from the guy who runs the booth; Larry is his name. Their meats are far superior to anything I've ever tasted, so fresh and juicy and I like knowing that those chickens, turkeys and pigs live such lush, free range lives before they are KILLED AND EATEN BY HUMAN BEINGS.

We placed an order to get our thanksgiving turkey from Dines about a month ago. We thought we were going to pick it up this Saturday but when we got to Larry's booth he said we would have to pick it up on Tuesday night. They are trying to time it so that the turkey is super fresh and you don't have to freeze it at all. This is great except that I'm in rehearsal on Tuesday and Dup has class. We spent about fifteen minutes standing there, trying to figure out how Larry could possibly get this turkey to us, while the people behind us, who could care less about our thanksgiving, got more and more pissed off at us for holding up the line. Finally he said he'd call us later. We were pretty sure we'd end up with some crappy Butterball from the Associated.

Then, last night we got his call. He was in our neighborhood, up by the water, about 12 blocks away making a delivery to a local restaurant, Queens Hideaway. "I know right where that is," I told him (very good restaurant if you are ever in Greenpoint btw). He explained that we had ordered a nine pound bird but all he had on him was a twelve pounder. "I'll take it, " I yelped without thinking twice. We agreed that he would call again when he finished his drop off and then rendezvous at the corner of Nassau and Manhattan Avenue, about four blocks from my house and on his way back to the BQE. Dup handed me the cash. I put on my shoes. When I got out to the corner I finally realized how absurd the whole thing was, standing on a street corner waiting for a turkey. It so resembled a drug deal. The corner we chose is action packed and although well lit and not scary per se, just a little seedy. I waited there for about fifteen minutes and while I stood there I got a lot of looks, some honks and one disgusting comment, all par for the course but I kept imagining the police stopping me once the transaction went down.

"Mam, were going to have to look inside the bag if you don't mind."
"It's a turkey officer and twelve pound, free-range, organic turkey."
"We're going to have to do a cavity search."

Finally Larry called me on my cell and it turned out that he had been waiting for me on the opposite corner for like 10 minutes. I turned around and there he was. This guy is so nice and we always chat it up with him when we get our chicken on Saturdays but last night he was out of his mind. I was like, "You doin okay Larry?" He explained that he had barely slept the last 3 days because he's been so busy with the turkeys. He was driving all the way back up to Albany that night only to reload his truck and turn around and come right back to Union Square bright and early. "But," he acquiesced, "that's the business." He was refering to the turkey business the week before Thanksgiving.

I put the big bird in my canvas bag and hoofed it back to the apartment. The cops didn't didn't catch me coming or going, suuuuckaaahhhhs....

Gosh, I hope I don't mess it up. Why is it so hard to cook a piece of meat? What could possibly go WRONG? Cut to me lying on my kitchen floor under a half cooked turkey with a baster in one hand and an empty bottle of wine in the other.

Wish me luck!