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OK I realize this follows along every year right after Thanksgiving. But every year, I have the same panic attack, usually about this time. Good night! It's time to hang lights on the house! Get a tree! Make cookies! Have a party or two! Finish buying presents! Celebrate Christmas!
I am trying to breathe.
This week I'm trying to get through a major Junior League fundraiser [at least the opening of one], a big party, another party, paying bills, laundry, and have you seen the dishes in the sink, and I am tired now, and there's a lot going on at work all of a sudden; how did that happen?
Next week all I have is a school fundraiser, office holiday party, friend's party and opera tickets. That's better because I'm only responsible for one thing really [school fundraiser]. The rest is show-up-and-have-fun.
So, we're postponing holiday prep around here until next week. Don't worry; there's lots of cooking involved.
I will share that I, a person who never makes New Year's Resolutions, have already made two for 2007:
* I will actually attend the book club at my church. They have faithfully continued to invite me every month and it sure sounds like I am missing a lot of fun. In 2007 I'm going to go.
* I'm going to strive to eliminate the phone-it-in dinner from our family's menu. I don't mean literally, like, phone up a pizza. We don't do that all that often. I mean, where I'm phoning it in by fixing mac & cheese from a box, or chicken nuggets, or something to that effect -- ie., something I know the kids will eat, something that takes 5-10 minutes, and in the end, is absolutely rotten for us and does nothing to expand their palates.
After 2 1/2 days with no voice at all, it started coming back yesterday evening. It is about halfway back now. I have some hope that tomorrow when I talk to my clients on the phone, they won't think I'm a prank caller.
So, here's the story about the smoker. My dad used to have a smoker. For some long and involved reason, his got messed up and he threw it out. When my sister and I agreed to do Thanksgiving, she insisted we had to smoke the turkey. Since we didn't even have a smoker, this made no sense to me. Add to the fact, neither of us had ever done so before. And in the past, this had always involved my uncle staying up all night and minding the bird. That did not sound like fun to me.
Apparently I was the idiot here, because next thing I knew, smoker had been procured from my mom's neighbors. In another of those unwritten rules, a smoked turkey is an essential element to Thanksgiving. Now you know.
[In case you ever need one, the best roasted turkey recipe I've ever used comes from Cook's Illustrated The Best Recipe cookbook. You soak the turkey overnight in a salt brine, then roast, then make a delicious gravy from the pan drippings. Alas, it was not to be this year for the Creekmore/Norment clan.]
At any rate, once we moved dinner to 5 p.m., we decided to start the smoking first thing on Thursday morning, which was at least civilized. My dad agreed to consult. He had already spent quite a bit of time on Wednesday cleaning the smoker, which was awesome. We got started and immediately discovered a problem: the water pan had holes in it.
Now, maybe you are like me and until now had no idea what the setup of a smoker was like. Here's the story: a smoker is shaped like a barrel, with a lid on top. There's a little door in the side where you can check the charcoal and add more if need be. There are two pans on the inside: The bottom pan is for charcoal. You fill it up and get it going just like a grill. Then, there's a pan above it for water. So you see, if the water pan has holes in it, your fire goes out. So that's no good.
The rack for your meat [or two racks, in the case of this large smoker we were using] is above the water pan.
We decided the smart thing to do was just to switch the water and charcoal pans [filling the old, holey water pan with charcoal, etc.]. The charcoal pan had no holes and so we could use it for water. New problem: the water pan [now to be filled with charcoal and placed at the bottom of the smoker] was smaller than the real charcoal pan, and so it fell through the brackets that were there to hold the larger charcoal pan.
Oh my word. By this time we'd spent half an hour or more getting set up, figuring things out and stewing over this and I had several times suggested "just roasting the damn thing."
My father, not so easily deterred, was determined to find a solution. It didn't take long. He found some bricks to sit the old water/new charcoal pan on, holding it at the proper height. Thankfully, the old charcoal/new water pan fit on the water pan brackets, and finally, finally we got started.
We basted and injected our 12 lb. turkey and 8 lb. breast with this mixture:
1 stick melted butter
1/2 c. white wine
1/2 c. honey
They took several hours to smoke and I'm sure glad we were minding them in the middle of the day in Florida, where it was 75 degrees or so, instead of overnight in Tennessee, where I remember many Thanksgivings of my childhood being in the 40s. Of course, with global warming I guess all that's over, since the high tomorrow here is 70!
I forgot to mention this one other item. For the past two days I have had no voice at all. I had a cold over the weekend and now I have the worst case of laryngitis I've ever had. So I spent all day yesterday trying to run the show in the kitchen [with my loud family] at a whisper. Hilarious.
The best thing to do, I think, is to go to my Flickr page and see all the Thanksgiving photos there. We took about a million, though I realized after dinner we hadn't taken a ton right before dinner. We had instead done a lot in progress and so then we took a lot afterward.
Here are the pies. I'll have to tell you about the smoker intrigue tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Photos to come later. There are MANY but the camera cord is in the room with the sleeping toddler.
The turkey and the turkey breast are in the smoker. The turkey breast was at 154 degrees about 10 minutes ago. It's an 8 lber, and the turkey is around 12 lbs, so we should be in great shape to eat around 5 p.m. There was some intrigue associated with getting the smoker started and I'll report more when the photos arrive.
These casseroles are mixed up and in the fridge, waiting to cook:
Golden Baked Potatoes: Momma's oven, 3:30 p.m., 350 degrees
English Pea Casserole: Momma's oven, 3:45 p.m., 350 degrees
Green Bean Casserole: Momma's oven, 4:15 p.m., 350 degrees
Cornbread Dressing (Aunt Judy): Our neighbor Ainslie's oven, 4 p.m., 375 degrees
Cornbread Dressing with Oysters and Pecans: Ainslie's oven, 4 p.m., 375 degrees
We'll also throw rolls in the oven (homemade by Aunt Judy and prebaked) to heat up at 4:50 p.m. and steam the asparagus at the last minute.
We baked the pies (Chocolate Chess Pie, Pecan Pie, Mincemeat Pie) first thing this morning.
That's it!
So, half our crew is on the beach. The rest of us are hanging out here watching Hoosiers and fixing Daddy's computer.
Oh!! The Party in a Bag is ready to come out of the oven. I gotta go!
Overheard at Thanksgiving: I don't have mice. I put my dirty dishes in the fridge.
Note to interstate travelers: Please reconsider using the Eisenhower interstate system if you can't bring yourself to use cruise control, or if your car is not so equipped, if you can't maintain a semi-regular rate of speed. I honestly don't care how fast or slow you go; just go the same speed. It's a great opportunity to improve upon your gas mileage.
Note to person in massive SUV driving on my bumper for a short while this afternoon: While I am already driving 78 in a 70 mph zone and I'm whizzing past cars in the slow lane, is it really necessary to get so close to me I can't even see your lights? I didn't think so, either.
Note to Nashville sister: Sorry I snapped at you when you called to inform me that everyone else wanted to move Thanksgiving dinner to 5 or 6 p.m. tomorrow evening, thus destroying your plans for the perfect day. I was previously unaware that the "right" time to have Thanksgiving is 1 p.m. [The rest of you are now so informed.] Next time I will try to muster more sympathy, but you know if you want help with the rules, you really should call NYC sister. You know I am more about breaking the rules.
Note to Hungry Toddler: I promise that once I work up my courage to get back in the car with you and get you home, I won't make another 7.5 hour trip alone with you until you are at least old enough to watch videos on one of those fancy-schmancy back-of-the-headrest DVD players. Especially because if I have to endure another 4 or 5 hours of screaming [and 30 more minutes of barfing] I will be deaf and worn out.
Note to everyone else: Thanks for the glass of wine. Here's to a great Thanksgiving!!
So, there's a website at martinlutherking[dot]org as evil and insidious as any you've ever seen, and perhaps moreso. It purports to tell the "truth" about Martin Luther King Jr. Historical revisionism has a new home on the Internet...in some ways easier to refute and in some ways more difficult.
The challenge today is that somehow these folks have made it to page 1 of Google when you search for "Martin Luther King Jr."
If you have a blog, do your part and link to these real, legitimate and historically accurate sites on MLK. Let's bump the imposters way down the list. Get the code and more info about the situation here.
Martin Luther King - Wikipedia entry on MLK
Martin Luther King - The King Center in Atlanta
Martin Luther King - How King's work evolved in his last years
Martin Luther King - MLK's bio for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964
Martin Luther King - Comprehensive package from the Seattle Times on MLK and the civil rights movement
Martin Luther King - Time magazine writes about the 100 most important people of the 20th century, including Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King - A Salon article from 2000 explains why this list is necessary: Historical revisionism is not dead.
Martin Luther King - Fun timeline of Dr. King's life done by a school classroom.
Martin Luther King - King Research and Education Institute at Stanford
Thanks for the tip, Rex.
