My First Turkey

Credit: Microsoft Clip Arts

Since this is Canadian Thanksgiving, I thought this story would be appropriate.

When I was 12, my mother went to work after being a housewife all my life.  At the time, my parents started an allowance program for my sister and me where we would help my mother with some of the chores she did before going to work.  My chores included cooking the evening meal during the week, vacuuming & looking after my sister every day after school.

My mother did not like other people in her kitchen when she was cooking, so I did not learn to cook by watching her or working on meals together.  I learned how to cook over the phone.  My mother would take something out of the freezer in the morning, when I got home from school I would call her & she would talk me through how to cook the meal.  This was how I stuffed my first turkey.

My mother told me how to make the stuffing, how to wash out the cavity & put the stuffing into the turkey.  Then she told me how to pin the legs together, gave me the cooking temperature & helped me calculate the cooking time.  She also talked me through tenting (with tin foil) the pan & how to get crispy skin on the turkey.

What she forgot to tell me – there are giblets inside the turkey!  So when you are trying to stuff the turkey, the stuffing won’t fit!

I had this bowl of prepared stuffing & a turkey, but no way would the stuffing fit inside the turkey.  I kept trying & trying.  It was not going to fit.  What was I going to tell my mother?  I was running out of time & I needed to get the turkey in the oven.  Thank goodness my neighbor & mother’s friend Dorothea chose that moment to pop over to ask for some salt.  I tearfully explained the situation to her & she offered to help.  As soon as she looked into the cavity, she realized the giblets were still inside & pulled them out.  All the stuffing now fit inside the turkey & I could get it into the oven only 5 minutes late!

Happy Turkey Day!

Credit: Microsoft Clip Art