| December 17, 2006 - Don't do this to a turkey |
| Dear Friends, the other day I ran into a friend of mine at my new Ye Olde Watering Hole. While we were chatting, the topic of his sister's lack of domestic skills came up. Several years ago she invited the whole family over for Thanksgiving. She had bought a large turkey and was going to stuff it with popcorn. Apparently she had seen a recipe that called for 3 cups of popcorn to be used as stuffing. However, she neglected to read the part that said the popcorn should be popped first. So she filled up this poor turkey with 3 cups of unpopped popcorn! While the family was sitting in the living room, they suddenly heard loud explosions like a machine gun coming from the kitchen. Everyone went rushing into the kitchen to see what was going on. When they opened the oven, the turkey was violently shaking as the popcorn inside of it popped. My friend said it was so violent that the turkey's outer skin started to split. Anyway, they were able to salvage the turkey to some extent but I can only imagine what the inside of the oven must have looked like. The story though made me laaaaaafffff my ass off. So Friday night I was at a party and told a woman there this story. And she told me she had an interesting Thanksgiving once. When she was about 6 years old, her mother decided to make the turkey inside of one of those plastic bags that you can put in the oven. When the turkey was done, she lifted it out onto the counter top and was trying to get it onto a platter. The turkey suddenly shot off the counter top and went scudding across the kitchen floor! From there it headed to a flight of stairs. The girl had just started up the stairs to see why her mother was yelling, when the turkey came bouncing down the stairs like a big, fleshy Slinkey! I didn't have the nerve to ask her if they ate the turkey anyway. Luckily I hate cooking, so I've not really had many culinary disasters. I have to say though that I used to cook Indian food from scratch fairly frequently. Once I was making a dish that required cooking mustard seeds in oil as part of the prep. I had done it before without mishap, but this time I wasn't paying attention. When mustard seeds cook, they pop similarly to popcorn. Anyway, I heard them popping and decided to open the pot to see if they were ready. As soon as the lid came off, a swarm of mustard seeds came boiling out of the pot! They flew all over the counter and a few even hit me. I can tell you, getting hit with hot mustard seeds isn't pleasant! I'm lucky I guess that none of them hit me in the eye! So this holiday season, Dear Friends, be careful what you put where! Next entry Previous entry Go to diary entries Go back home |