A Turkey Tale, Part 1

Before I fill you in on our Thanksgiving turkey adventure, I have an epilogue on the weekend that we lost Pearl. Hilda and I consoled ourselves by making a cast iron skillet calzone from a recipe from America’s Test Kitchen. I had to buy a new 12” skillet for the occasion, since the largest either of us had was 10”. I’m pleased to report that Lodge now sells them seasoned, an innovation that was LONG overdue, in my opinion. I never could get my cast iron skillet seasoned properly after 30 years of intermittent use. I suspect to really make it work, you have to cook bacon in your skillet every morning. It worked out all right when everyone was working the farm all day long. Not so good with a desk job.

In any case, here is my half of the calzone. 

Cast Iron Skillet Calzone

Terry was unimpressed. “Calzone is not my favorite,” were his exact words. What is not to like? Some things I will never understand. More lunches for me, I say.

Tuesday was the turkey round-up. Hilda and I were openly worried about. Terry talked like he was unconcerned, but when I got home Tuesday afternoon, he had a plan written out on the back of a page from my Dilbert desk calendar (which Terry routinely uses as note paper). He had made a large hook from heavy wire. He would snag the legs with the hook. I would hold the wings down until he could get a good grab to carry the bird to the kennel on the back of his pickup. He scribbled on the diagonal at the bottom, “Remove glasses.”

“Remove glasses?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” he explained. “If they start kicking and flapping, they could knock our glasses off.” He has seen guys struggle with wounded wild turkeys while hunting. Turkeys are not to be taken lightly.

I put my glasses on a table in the greenhouse. We walked into the turkey run. The first jenny was an easy grab. I walked up to her slowly, petted her back, and held her shoulders. Terry came up from behind, reached around her sides, and got a firm grip on her legs. I opened the door to the green house, and he carried her to the truck, where Hilda was waiting to open the kennel door.

The other two now knew that something was up. They started in with alarm calls (answered by the jenny in the cage) and became skittish. Terry and I got on either side of the second jenny and cornered her between us at the fence. I again held her wings while Terry got her legs. Two down.

And then there was Jake, who was now fully puffed up and hissing with aggravation at being separated from his girls. Terry suggested we try to corner him by the fence also, and that worked well. But he was much bigger. Terry could barely reach around him to get his legs. With the legs secured, Terry could hardly lift him. “He’s at least 40 pounds,” Terry said. “I know what 40 pounds feels like.”

Forty pounds is not that much to lift when it’s an inert bag of chicken feed. Forty pounds that’s fighting back is a different thing altogether. But Terry managed. As soon as all three turkeys were in the kennel, they calmed right down. Turkeys, apparently, can face anything as long as they’re together.

Here is Terry tying down the cage for the trip to the butcher.

Getting ready for the fateful trip to the butcher

Todd (the butcher) took the turkeys from the truck to a cage inside his shop. Terry opened the shop door while I held the door to the kennel closed between trips. The jennies when first. As before, once they were separated, they became anxious so that the second jenny was more difficult to move than the first, and Jake was the worst of all. On the trip over, quite a lot of poop had accumulated in the bottom of the cage. A lesson learned from raising turkeys was “big bird, big poops.” One of the turkeys had had runny poop for his or her entire life, and there was a puddle of that, too. While Jake and Todd struggled, one of Jake’s kicks spattered poop all the way down my right arm. Good thing I wore my work coat.

I was very careful with the seat belt for the ride home so as to not get poop on it. When we got home, I wiped off what I could, and Terry started a load of work clothes right away.

After much discussion with Hilda, we had decided on a wet brine. Terry, based on previous experience dressing geese, figured that Jake would come back at about 22 pounds. That was 10 pounds heavier than any turkey I’d cooked before. I was nervous. Following a recipe Hilda found online, I mixed up three gallons of brine in the largest stock pot I own. The recipe said two gallons was enough for most birds, but really large birds might take three. “Really large” was defined as 22 pounds, so I figured we’d be good. I wanted the brine to spend the night in the refrigerator so it would be good and cold when I got home with the turkey the next day.

Jane and I had a fun shopping trip to Kenosha Wednesday. I hoped it would not be crowded because it was still a workday for most folks. The cold, gray, drizzly day may also have kept people at home. In any case, the outlet mall was fairly deserted. Woodman’s grocery was insanely busy, and it seemed like it was all amateurs. Shoppers left carts in the middle of the aisle and wandered aimlessly. While my list was short, it was hard to imagine another assemblage of items that could have been farther apart—celery in produce, chocolate syrup over by the ice cream, milk in the far back corner.

We were still on schedule to get our Hershey Almond Fudge Flavor of the Day custard at the Lake Geneva Culver’s by 2:30 so I could pick up Jake from Todd at 3:00.

Todd was in the house when I pulled in. He walked stiffly out to the shop, explaining that he’d had a couple of monster turkeys, way bigger than ours, to process. One had been 44 pounds dressed! It had about killed him to process that one.

Todd got Jake out of the walk-in cooler. “I’ll weigh it for you,” he said, “so you know how long you’ll have to cook it.” He put it on scale and told me it was 32 pounds and some ounces. I was so shocked at the first number that the second one didn’t even register. Thirty-two pounds?! Jesus God. And by the way, I’m serving 5 people for dinner. Will 6.5 pounds per person be enough?

“Dale said they’d be 12 pounds by Thanksgiving,” I told Todd, who knows Dale. “He’s a big fat liar.”

Todd laughed. “Be sure you tell Dale that next time you see him.”

Todd carried Jake to my car and put it in the cooler. It was as wide as the cooler and about 2/3 as long. Suddenly it occurred to me that I could brine it in the cooler. The garage should be cold enough overnight. It would have to be. That damned thing wasn’t going to fit in the refrigerator, that was certain.

This is what a 32-pound turkey looks like

Terry and I carried the cooler and turkey downstairs so I could get the bag off and take the giblets out. The liver probably weighed a pound right there. While I did that, Terry washed out the cooler. We put Jake in the cooler and took it up to the garage, where Terry cleared off a spot on one of the shelves. I went downstairs for my three gallons of brine. Which filled the cooler about halfway.

I made three more gallons of brine, including a gallon of ice cubes, since the water wasn’t as cold as I would have liked. The brine barely covered the turkey. I slept fitfully that night, mulling over how I was going to cook this giant bird.