Saturday, November 27, 2010

A Failure Too Monumental to Bear

Horrors, horrors !  I thought I had learned to accept the occasional failure with wry humor and grace, but really, this is too much.

The awful truth is........My thanksgiving cookery efforts turned out to be so vile that I can hardly believe that I was the one who perpetrated that inedible mess.  And yet, the cats can neither chop, mince, slice nor reach the stove controls (nor, in truth, would they be bothered to do so even if they could) and, since there is no one else here, I guess I must accept the  blame.  Sigh.  Like that wonderful guy, Pres. Harry Truman, said....long  before most of you were born,....."The buck stops here."

I have been making turkeys and dressing and cranberry relish for more years than......well.....than most people.......during good times and bad, weathering Thanksgivings tinged with both depression and ecstasy, and somehow things always turned out OK. (not always delectable and to die for but generally somewhat yummy)  So where did I go so wrong?  I can only assume that it happened  because I attempted to be flexible and try doing a few things differently.  (This must prove that it is indeed better to be immovable, stubborn as a mule and totally resistant to change........see, I always knew those self-help gurus were full of crap).

Anyway, many moons ago, a little while after man had discovered fire, I decided to try one of those "cook-in-the-bag" methods to make my turkey, and it turned out tasting like a stewed creature, hardly recognizable as a roasted turkey, though I must grudgingly admit it was certainly moist as promised....sort of like a soup chicken. Ugh. (Don't misunderstand.......it is fine for a soup chicken to taste like a soup chicken, but not for a supposedly roasted turkey.)    It ended up  being the basis for lots of enchilada casseroles, pierogies, turkey salads and feasts for the neighborhood cats whose mothers had obviously not ruined their taste buds by providing them with the real thing at an early age.  I cannot tell you what could have possessed me to decide to try it again after such a definite disaster......but then, I cannot always explain my actions, even to myself.  I figured that if I used the Bag method for the first 2 hours and then removed it and allowed the creature to roast in a normal fashion and brown and crisp up nicely for the last hour it might come out both moist and tasty.  Faulty logic.  My ingenious thinking managed to produce a turkey that not only tasted stewed but was so dry it stuck to the roof of one's mouth like peanut butter.    No amount of applying the juice from the bottom of the pan seemed to help much but I figured that at least the cats would have a feast for weeks.

Faulty logic again.  My own spoiled- rotten cats obviously felt sorry for me and humored me by eating some of it while it was fresh out of the oven and liberally ladled with juice.  But, the second day  they looked at me as if I were a crazy person and at the plates of turkey as if I were trying to poison them and demanded their canned cat food.  And this morning I received the unkindest blow of all.  When I awoke and went out to the porch buffet to take in what normally are empty dishes licked clean by stray kitties and possums I found, to my utter horror and shame, the hardened lumps of minced turkey virtually untouched.  So lovingly offered.....so cruelly rejected !

To make this tragedy even worse,  I ruined the stuffing that I normally make which is so delicious that I usually prefer it to the turkey itself.  Having tasted a wonderful stuffing made by a friend last year which contained sausage and mushrooms I decided to include those additions to my plain seasoned bread, onion, celery recipe and threw in some wild rice for good measure hoping to create a masterpiece.  I could hardly  believe it when it came out tasting like nothing much on the fabulous scale and highly revolting on the "don't ever make this again" side.  Instead of putting containers of this into the freezer for future delectation I dumped it into the garbage this morning.......some things obviously cannot be saved.  Sob.

However, I think the piece de resistance to this whole horror story is the fact that the fresh cranberry-orange orange relish that I usually make also came out  barely edible because the orange that I used was oddly sour and I put in too much sugar trying to compensate for this flaw.  However, God was good to me in this case.....no slurs or rebuffs to be bravely borne.......the jar slipped out of my hands as I was putting it into the frig and festooned the entire kitchen floor with glass and cranberry colored sugared fruit and it only took me about an hour to gather it all up and wash to floor 17 times to get rid of the stickiness.  I must assume that Escoffier personally oversaw the imposition of this punishment on me for having committed such a crime in the name of a culinary effort.  At least I did not have to personally empty the jar into the garbage........it ended up there without my having to overcome my usual reluctance to waste food.

So what is the lesson this effing, bleeping, experience has taught me?  I am not sure, but I know one or two things.....tenks gott I did not try also that new pecan pie recipe.........and I am fucking thankful I do not have to eat my home cooked Thanksgiving Dinner for a whole week.

22 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness, what a nightmare and yet I am thankful for such great blog fodder! Perhaps eat out next year?! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your cooking effort still better than mine though. (o:

    ReplyDelete
  3. Some years are just like that. But what a good story it made, dear Lo!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'll come down next year and take you out to dinner!!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh my, once again a terrible experience makes for a truly funny blog. Tenks gott for your sense of humor, Lo!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Never. Never, ever, ever mess with your traditional Thanksgiving menu. Never. Screw around with any other holiday menu you like; but stick to the basics for this traditional day of feasting.

    Bright side: Your kitchen floor is now wonderfully clean.

    ReplyDelete
  7. You are suffering so. I would just stick to pecan pie and bake that turkey in a pan uncovered and brown it up good.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oh my Lo..I don't know whether to laugh or cry,,,Gotta be honest,,Your sense of humore did have me smiling a lot,,How many times have you had this happen???? Never, I would bet,,So considering the percentage of failures to scrumtious meals, you are still batting 1000 when it comes to cooking...I do hope this experience hasn't made you hang up your apron!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Lo dear...even Betty Crocker made mistakes. (She just didn't write about them! :-D )

    ReplyDelete
  10. Oh wow, that sucks. At least you learned a few things. Mostly, not to do new things. :-P

    http://ficklecattle.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  11. While I laughed like a crazy woman at your post, there's no way I'll be letting my husband or in-laws read it. I have more of an adventurous spirit when it comes to cooking and they are far more traditional...and you don't mess with tradition around them! You should have heard the reaction the year I thought about making pumpkin mousse or cheesecake instead of pie! Glad you can see the upsides - none of those for left overs and clean floors *g*.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hi Lo, Next year why don't you just try one of those TV dinners..get the hungry woman one that you can put in the microwave:)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Well, that was a good laugh and a half. Your description is just great.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Oh dear. But could you have ruined pecan pie? My idea about pecan pie is that whatever state it appears in, the basic ingredients are just so yummy that nothing could spoil it.

    ReplyDelete
  15. LOL! I am laughing with you, not at you. My aunt cooked her turkey in the bag this year. It was the first one I've ever had cooked that way. It was pretty good. I prefer roasting it in the oven. The only things I can say that were barely edible was the gluten free gravy and pie crust since she has Celiacs Disease.

    The first time I attempted to prepare a Turkey dinner, I cooked the bird upside down and left the giblets in it. Lesson learned.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I think your sense of humor is back.

    Oh, and everyone is entitled to mess up a nice dinner, even a holiday one, once in a while. You were probably overdue, and it won't happen again for half a millennium.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Good grief Lo. Subtracting a little for blogger hyperbole it still sounds pretty bad. Methinks radical socialistic fascist revolutionary destroyer (according to the Fix News types) that I am.... when it come to cooking my favorite dishes tried and true, dont fix it if it ain't broke works bet.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Your blog is a much needed antidote to the sugary-sweet stories of perfection prevalent in blogland. I like the animal references too.

    @Fran It is possible to ruin pecan pie. My stepmother made it once using Karo syrup and really expensive pecans and it somehow never set up: it was just store-bought pie crust with pecans floating on Karo syrup.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I am new to this...but you are definitely someone I can relate to! :)

    ReplyDelete
  20. Hi:
    One Thanksgiving I roasted the turkey just fine, but then dropped it on the kitchen floor. I picked it up and put it on the platter and no one was the wiser. The heck with cleanliness! The turkey was just a bit bruised but it tasted fine and no one got sick.

    ReplyDelete
  21. I couldn't help but giggle to myself the entire time while reading this. No worries though, you can always treat yourself to a relatively familiar thanksgiving meal at a restaurant.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Hey, Lo! I made my Thanksgiving dinner while in a wheelchair this year, so I'm not responsible for how it turned out!

    ReplyDelete