Gobble, Gobble

This past weekend Sarah and I had a bunch of people over to our house for a "Thanksgiving Preview" party. In a couple of weeks we're going to have both sets of inlaws at our house for Thanksgiving, and, because of my love of all things cooked over an open flame, I said I wanted to cook the turkey on the grill. I cook lots of things on the grill, and figured that a turkey wouldn't be all that different from a pork shoulder. They're roughly the same size, and, if anything, the pork shoulder would be harder to cook because it's denser. Anyway, Sarah said okay one condition--a smart condition, I might add: that we cook a turkey before "the day" so if I royally screwed it up, it wouldn't be on Thanksgiving and thereby ruining her favorite holiday--a situation that would undoubtedly involve much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Well, I cooked the turkey on the grill and have some news to report.














Score.

I cooked the hell out of that turkey. It's safe to say that Mr. Floppy-Neck had no idea what happened to him once I got ahold of him, but ne'er has a turkey been so divine (if I do say so myself). I brined that sombeech for 18 hours in a mixture of water, salt, brown sugar, apple juice, peppercorn, allspice, and clove, and then cooked him for somewhere on the order of 3 1/2 hours, to an internal temperature of 175. At some point I tented him in foil because he was all golden-brown and I didn't want his tasty self to burn. I let it rest for 39 minutes before disassembling him into tasty goodness, and let the Americocentric feast begin.

Ahh, America, and your infatuation with unnaturally big breasts. The turkey, you heathens. Go read some Kingsolver. Geez.

Done, pt. 1

I missed last Monday night's forced blog post. I'm sure all of you people who read this blog (all none of you) missed it. Well, here's one to make you happy.

I finished my dissertation. It's done (except for 2 small things I have to add to the works cited page, which I'll do in the morning). I'm turning it in to my committee tomorrow, and will defend it on December 10. Now I'm going to cook French food.

I like to cook (as opposed to my wife, who loves to bake). Maybe I'll post stuff about cooking like she does about baking. Maybe I'll even put some pictures in. The writing won't be as good as hers is, but maybe it'll be interesting. There will probably be more cussing. And more references to post-punk and gothic Americana. Maybe I'll do it. Maybe I won't. I'm so punk.

The first thing I'm going to do is make some good veal stock and demiglase (if I can find veal bones in Oxford. I'm not optimistic. Rhea's Market might be able to get them.) But then I'm going to grill a turkey this weekend, so maybe I'll do that.

The thing is, I write all day (or at least all morning--like 4 hours) so I don't want to write on a blog at night. It's not relaxing. I want to read. I want to cook (but we don't have money or ingredients enough to do what I want). I want to play awesome-looking Playstation 3 games (again with the money thing). I'll do the first two. At least until I can figure out some way to buy myself a video game console. I need to hurry with that one because I'm rapidly leaving the prime video game demographic. I've only got a few years left. Getting old blows.