Beren deMotier * writer * artist * human  

"No More Mrs. Nice Gay"                            November 22, 2005 

Turkey Anxiety

            Now that the end of November is nigh, turkey anxiety has me in its talons, and won’t let me go.

            For years, I have been the designated turkey chef in our family.  Not that I came into the relationship with any special skills in this area – we were pretty equal in our lack of domesticity.  My wife because she had a mommy who took care of all that, me because I had one pan; I cooked in it, and ate out of it, and turkeys didn’t fit the pan or my bare-bones budget. 

I came into the turkey chef role primarily because I do most of the “wet work”.  You know, the gross stuff, and opening up a raw turkey, pulling out the neck and innards, and getting it ready to cook when it looks like something that should be decently buried, definitely falls under the “gross” category.  After changing approximately fifteen thousand dirty diapers over the last several years, handling cold, raw flesh doesn’t bother me, and one body cavity is as good as another when it comes to dead birds.  I’ve become a natural for this job.

            My wife, bless her studly heart, is disgusted by the whole idea. 

            But every year I feel more nervous before the day when the meal will center on a well-browned bird, and I’m responsible for getting it to the table on time, and in an edible condition. 

            Luckily, I don’t have to do this on Thanksgiving Day itself.  We load up our three kids and drive North to Seattle for turkey day, where we are fed from a groaning board of rolls, green bean salad, two kinds of potatoes, six kinds of pie, marshmallow ambrosia and two or three turkeys; one roasted ahead, and two deep fried, a modern tradition this safety queen could do without.  Who decided a boiling pot of peanut oil was a good idea?  

            I’m not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing that Thanksgiving comes before my anxiety inducing turkey roasting day the next week, when we host our annual lesbian mothers’ potluck dinner, a Thanksgiving do-over among friends, for which we provide the poultry.  The turkey at my in-laws varies a great deal from year to year.  Sometimes it is overdone, sometimes moist and succulent, and one time dangerously raw.  On one hand this lowers the bar a great deal, and I don’t go into roasting day feeling like I’ll never measure up to my in-laws standards.  On the other hand, I know just how badly things can go. 

I have made my share of dud turkeys, though so far not for the potluck.  One was on Christmas Eve, with just my wife and kids as witness to a meal that re-created the famous scene in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, when the family is gathered round, and Chevy Chase cuts into the turkey, and it deflates with a puff of smoke, and shrinks into a dried out, inedible carcass.  Fortunately, we are fond of mashed potatoes.  Another year, we had our first free range turkey, and it seemed to defy cooking and stayed pink (generally a bad thing) hours after the recipe considered it “done”.  We learned later that free-range, natural turkeys don’t necessarily stop being pink, no matter how long you cook ‘em, and that’s not a good gauge for doneness.

            This year, for the potluck, we pre-ordered a free-range, happy turkey from the Sierra Nevada foothills.  It came with a recipe I will follow to the exact letter, and will be timed carefully to come out of the oven when our guests are due to arrive, thus allowing for lesbian standard time (a thirty minute give or take), while the hopefully roasted turkey drains and gravy can be made.

            The bad news is that anything could still go wrong.  Our freezer could die this week.  Our oven could die next (it is over fifty years old).  The turkey could refuse to cook.  It could cook an hour sooner than described, and be cold before the first family arrived.  Our ninety-two pound Labrador could decide he’s tired of his diet, and needs the bird more than we do.

            The good news is that it is a potluck.  The other women are proficient but nonjudgmental cooks, capable of side-dish preparation, and if they don’t have time to cook, they shop at Costco.  With sixteen women, we will have food to spare, whether or not the turkey explodes, or I give in to anxiety and buy a ham. 

Even better, since we’ve been hosting this event for, I don’t know, eight or nine years?  We have plenty of teenagers to save us from temptation and the leftovers, something to be thankful for indeed.