Its all in the planning….

I’m the type of mom that likes to plan ahead. When the children, nieces, nephews were all home and not scattered across the U.S. my house was ground zero for Thanksgiving. Total of people chowing down neared twenty. So you had the adult table and the childrens table to set.  Needless to say with that amount of folks it required planning second to D Day invasion or as my father-in-law fondly called it “Feast Day Invasion”.

 

I cooked my stuffing in pan cake pans froze them and warmed them up that day. Pies and cakes were cooked the weekend before and that day only the greens. Yes in the south you must have your collard greens cooked with ham grease.  Which leads me to this story.

 

I believe it was about seven years ago, my oldest son was seventeen and I was a working elementary school teacher. Because time was crunched, I got it into my head to cook the Thomas T. Turkey on Sunday before the holiday. Son was working at a local eattery so he helped me lift the 23 pound bird and place it in the roaster then to the oven before work. Not a problem. 

 

While my bird was cooking, I fixed my collards. Now, when you cook a country ham, you save the grease for seasoning. Again, I freeze mine in old ice trays so you can plop a cube into the mix. I forgot, the trays had been broken and the only ones I found stored in plastic bags were the naked lady ice cubes. Imagine my husband’s face when I asked him to stir and the upper torso of a woman who was well endowed bobbed to the surface. I should have known at that point things were going down hill.

 

So turkey browned and cooked. Collards tender and stored in tupperware awaiting Thursday. We all went to sleep with vision of feasting dancing in our heads.  The next morning, I readied for work as son stumbled into the kitchen for his morning corn flakes.

“Will, I’m off to work. don’t touch the turkey. I’ve got left over meatloaf for your lunch see you at four.”

I never should have mentioned the turkey. 

 

According to him, everytime he opened the icebox the reynolds wrap (aluminium foil) lifted and he heard a wee little voice, “TASTE ME”. He slammed the door but he said it kept drawing him back. So, he cut a piece from the bottom to make sure it was done. He SAID it tasted great, however it was like Lays – “You couldn’t eat just one”. So… Yes, he went back and back and back and back. When I got home at four, he was curled into a ball complaining of stomach pains.  Inside my refrigerator were the skeleton remains of my Thanksgiving Feast.  Several doses of pepto bismal later my son went to the store and bought a fresh turkey so that Thanksgiving Day around 5 a.m. we began cooking  Theodore G. (for glutton) Turkey and it was ready for the Rockwell  portait. 

 

Our family still talks about that Thanksgiving. I used it to demonstrate descriptive writing for my fifth grade students and yesterday in the store, one of them home from College asked if I remembered that.   

My son called this am from “Lanta” that city in Georgia for those that may not understand southern speak (Atlanta) he wanted to know if I was cooking the Terry early. Yes, my children like to name the bird. I told him I would not cook it until Tuesday when he came  home so he could sit infront of the oven with the little light on an watch it. Then, it will go under lock and key until Thursday.  

 

Some traditions never change.