Turkey Wrestling

I just wrestled a turkey.  Not a live one, but one with plenty of stamina, nonetheless.   He caught my eye at the grocery store.  There he was, lying frozen in the case,  much like a 12 pound chunk of granite. A couple of heavy duty carnivores happen to live at my house, so it sounded like a good idea to pick this guy up.     Come to Momma, Mr. Tom turkey—you’re going home to become dinners and lunches, and pot pie and whatever else I can think of to feed these hungry men.

So home he came and out into the garage fridge he went to thaw.  No big deal.  His yummy light and dark meat wasn’t on the menu for a few days.  He could take 2 or 3 days to thaw.  But strangely, when I checked it a couple of days later, no thawing seemed to have occurred.  Maybe we were keeping the refrigerator too cold.  It was turned up a couple of numbers.   But a day later, that bird still felt kind of frozen.  Ok, enough messing around.  We need some meat for dinner—TODAY.  He was coming out ready or not.  Back in the kitchen,  Mr. Tom went,  plop, into a sink full of warm water.  Oh, wait, you say—that’s a no-no!  The water should be cold and changed every half hour or so!  Save it, Sister—I didn’t have time for all that fooling around.   The oven went on.  The roasting pan was lined with foil and the rack placed on the bottom. 

You’re supposed to thaw a frozen turkey while it’s still in the plastic, you know.   So I prodded him around in the sink, trying to figure out if this turkey was really still frozen or just had seriously toned muscles.   I probably should have left it in the sink for a while longer and changed the water every little bit, but I just couldn’t take it anymore.   The scissors came out of the drawer and the plastic was punctured.  There was no going back. The next  task came after stripping off the plastic--get the giblets and neck out.  (Yeah, this wasn’t my first time at the poultry rodeo—there are benefits to not being a young cook—I knew they were in there unlike so many poor unsuspecting first-timers!)   I went for the giblets first.  There was definitely some frozen material back there, but they were eventually wrestled out from under  the tail.  Now for the monstrous neck, wedged in the main body cavity.  I plunged my hand in and grabbed ahold of the curved part of the neck and started to pull.  No use—it wasn’t going anywhere.  It was still cemented by ice to the ribs of the bird.  What to do?  This thing needed more thawing before that neck was coming out, that was for sure.   Here’s where the struggle began in earnest.   “Wait,” I thought, “it’s not a huge bird—it just might fit in our biggest pot.”  A burner went on.   The pot was pulled out.  In went a few cups of water.  In went the bird.  On went the lid.  There’s more than one way to defrost a turkey.  All right, so maybe this method was becoming a little unorthodox—in the heat of battle, you’ll try just about anything.   Now many (maybe most) people would give up on the idea of roasting the bird and be content to cook it in the pot.  Well, once you declare war—you have a distinct and glorious goal in mind.    Anything less is unacceptable.   I waited a few minutes, confident that the result of this steam bath would be a loosened neck (Tom’s, not mine, preferably).   When the time seemed right,  another attempt was made to extricate the neck.  Imagine my amazement and disgust upon finding the neck was still stuck! 

OK—no more Mrs. Nice Lady.  More hot water was required and it needed to be poured directly into the cavity and onto that stubborn neck!  Thankfully we have a Keurig coffee maker which in an instant grants your hot water wish.  Down into the cavity went the almost boiling water.   The bird went back to the stove for a second round in the steam room.  The timer was set.  A few minutes later the bell rang and it was time to reap the fruits of my labor.  Oh, what was this?  Gave up, did you?  Was this an official surrender?  I thought you’d see things my way eventually ….really—it was for the best.   I placed the defeated neck on a paper plate to be dealt with in a moment.  Now of course the big, wet bird needed to come out of the huge pot and find its way onto the roasting pan rack.  It didn’t matter that the handle of a favorite long carving fork was snapped off trying to get the thing out of the pot.   I had won.  The neck was out.  Somehow the turkey made it to the roasting pan and into the oven.  Guess Tom won’t be messin’ with me anytime soon.  And yes, I revel in the fact that I am tougher than a frozen turkey.