Bah… Sorry, got on in my blather! Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving. Bon Appetite

From Home Depot or the equivalent: In the paint dept. get a tall white plastic bucket with a lid. (very cheap). For a 14 lb. and up turkey:
2 gallons water
2 C. Kosher salt
1/2 C. brown sugar
1 1/2 quarts buttermilk

Put the turkey in headfirst. This amount, covered — soak approx. 10 hours. Dry with paper towels, stuff, bake as normal. Moist, delicious, more closely grained,never fails.

Stuffing: 2 loaves “homemade” white bread, picked to large crouton size, allowed to dry some( say the day before) Add:
1 large onion, finely minced 2 C finely chopped celery
Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and ground sage. Toss well, pour over 3/4 to 1 C melted butter. Nothing else.

Sweet potatoes: Bake in microwave however many you need. Peel, mash, salt and pepper, and butter.
A little cream, and a big dollop of bourbon or brandy.
No marshmallows, no sugar.

There, that was really easy. Save for next year.

This is known as “peking duck” – the heat that you used is too volatile (I doubt you could do it consistently even if you could have exact control). You generally use some form of compressed air to separate the skin from the meat and then it does that.

As for Turkey – I prefer “deep fried”. However I have an infra-red “oil-less deep fat fryer”. Of course it isn’t deep fat frying but that is what the device is called. It is radiant heat only (otherwise known as infra-red cooking) and primarily cooks by heating the fats on the skin (also known as frying) so it isn’t exactly incorrect either. Frankly it takes a a really knowledgeable person to tell the difference between that and a deep fat fried turkey and has none of the cost or safety issues with a true deep-fat fried turkey.
Further it allows for a greater variation in spices and rubs placed on the skin as they aren’t washed off, though you have to be careful of burning.

Never really been much of a fan of baked turkey no matter how good the meat starts out. Smoked Turkey is great of the person smoking it has the skill to do it right (I only get it right about 75% of the time) but fat-frying one takes little to no skill and a mostly job turns out better than all but the very best baked. If done right the Turkey absorbs little more than a few tablespoons of the oil too. The infra-red cooker makes it even easier.

If you thaw the turkey completely, pat it dry, drop it in slowly, and make sure the oil stays around 350 degrees it is quite simple to do. You biggest worries are either cooking too long (which still dried the meat), letting the oil temperature get to low (makes it absorb oil and get oily/greasy), or the initial placing the turkey in the oil (this is where fire mostly happen – though if you let the oil get to hot during cooking it can too) then everything works great. For the most part it is about as safe as deep frying anything else and has the same rules.

Theres a great line in a short film called “The Accountant” that refers to yankees infiltrating the south that goes…”Purdy soon we’ll have corn bread dats sweet an iced tea that hain’t”. A little 20 min film i highly recommend by the way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/21/dining/21carv.html

My First Thankful Thanksgiving

I’ve started doing my own cooking just in the past few months and it’s going pretty well. My freezer, which was formerly filled with TV dinners, is now full of plastic containers of leftovers which I can reheat in the microwave.

I still haven’t tried to make turkey and stuffing, though. Hopefully by next year I’ll have enough experience and confidence to give it a try.

I can assure everyone that, if the South had won the War, there would have ensued a civil war over whether sugar belongs in any vegetable, and we are on the NOT side, but the yams are right tasty.

On the other hand I understand that Southerners like sweetened iced tea. I’m a Yankee, and I prefer my iced tea unsweetened, with a splash of grape juice. MUCH better than lemon. You can adjust the proportions any way you like. When I was a kid, I made it about 50-50, but nowadays I like straight tea with just a shot of grape juice. You don’t even need to stir it. It mixes itself.

I got that from my parents, who were both from Maryland, which was a border state.