Jan 22, 2012
Recipes Gone Wild
When Bossy was a kid, Bossy’s mom got it in her head it would be a great idea to swap houses with someone over the Thanksgiving break. At the time Bossy’s family was living in a high rise on the 19th floor, so swapping lifestyles for the holidays meant locating someone with a farm. And an adventurous spirit.
After locating someone willing to stay in the Bossy family apartment in exchange for keys to their remote farmhouse, the only thing left for Bossy’s mom to do was pack everything necessary for a family of four and their many friends who always descended during the holidays to linger in the country for a long weekend.
This included all the groceries for the traditional meal.
Which is how it came to be the turkey meant to feed a nation of starving artists — or at least those dining with the Bossy family — was abandoned in the Bossy family car 24 hours before Thanksgiving.
How did this happen? you may not be asking but Bossy’s family sure did. As the story goes, Bossy’s mother was employing the logic that suggests the car is probably the temperature of the crowded refrigerator.
Just imagine the look on Bossy’s mom’s face when, hungover on Thanksgiving morning, she realized the turkey was frozen solid with only hours until her sit-down dinner meant to feed the world.
Obviously a shortcut to defrosting the turkey was paramount, back before there were microwaves in farmhouses, or words like paramount.
This is when Bossy’s mom located a few dishtowels in the kitchen drawers that were foreign to her domestic fingers. She then soaked those dishtowels in boiling water and draped them over the turkey while she went about preparing the side dishes.
When the turkey could no longer spare another minute not spent roasting in the oven, Bossy’s mom peeled back the dish towels to analyze its condition.
As it turns out, the dish towels were made of terry cloth which had stuck to the defrosting turkey, giving it the appearance of thick colorful fur.
“We can shave it off!” Bossy’s dad suggested.
There were other events, too.
Inside of the allotted cooking time, the turkey’s legs pushed through the flabby skin at odd angles creating a Jurassic tableau. And there was a disturbing absence of pan drippings which forecasted a troubled gravy.
“It’s probably going to be the best turkey we ever had,” Bossy’s teenage brother suggested, because he’s that guy.
This prompted the family to think about what the recipe for that year’s turkey would look like.
Purchase turkey
Leave in frozen backseat
Cover in shedding dish towels
Shave the turkey fur
Place in oven preheated for a time increment longer than forever
Wrap jutting turkey extremities in tin foil
Collect felled tin foil from bottom of oven
Pour chicken stock in turkey pan
Scrape away burnt chicken stock
Prime guests with alcohol and plenty of it
Serve
Well, it wasn’t the best turkey the Bossy family ever ate, but it is the only turkey recipe they can remember to this day.
Care to share your cooking disaster in recipe form in Bossy’s comment section? Wouldn’t that make a fun cookbook?
Think it would be a great idea to use orange juice instead of water to cook rice.
Boil 1 cup rice in 2 cups orange juice.
Taste.
Throw out orange-colored rice.
also, I think “We can shave it off” is going to become one of my favorite catch-all solutions to everyday problems … I can’t wait to use it at work.
The Thanksgiving not so long ago when the turkey just would not get done. It turned out the oven thermostat was out of whack and the temperature was way lower than what I set it for. I have a new stove now.
Mrs. Tuna once ruined Thanksgiving by naming the turkey Stephanie and telling her things like that she’d make everyone a fine meal.
Let’s just say it was a vegetarian day.
I’ve been trying (and failing) to make French bread for the last few weeks. One memorable attempt had me using a floured tea towel to cradle the dough. Unfortunately, the dough not only stuck to the floured towel, it picked up the pattern of red stripes from the pattern. Could not bring myself to bake it….
I once thought, years ahead of my time, that it would save both electricity and water if I used the water I had boiled my egg in to make my cup of tea. Ack, ack, ack!
In my first apartment as a 19 year old I hosted my first Easter dinner….and served a canned ham. I didn’t even have to do anything to make it any more horrible that it was all on its own.
My mother forgot to turn the oven on one year. That yields a very raw, very pink, very cold turkey. We ate later that year.
In a fit of Desperate Diabetic I made cookies with Splenda instead of sugar. They were heinous. I’d rather be cookie free for the rest of my life than eat cookies made with Splenda.
There was the time I took “remove Tien Tsin Chinese Hot Red Chiles before serving” as more a suggestion then an order and made several of my guests sick. In my defense, they were really wussy about spicy food.
I can attest when your Mom cooks a turkey upside down it DOES NOT yield a more juicy turkey; just a dizzy one.
Recipe for first Christmas Dinner for in-laws:
400 cups anxiety, sliced
9 weeks spent searching for perfect tablecloth
Sweaty armpits, covered and marinated overnight
1 bunch wondering why no help from future husband
Case of wine, reserved for self
Well of course it’s the only Thanksgiving recipe you’d remember…it’s unforgettable! Norman Rockwell-esque perfect family dinners are highly overrated, in my estimation.
and bossy’s mom was gorgeous.
Decide to be frugal and use up ripe bananas by making bread with them.
In bowl combine sugar, butter, eggs, mashed bananas, vanilla extract, and buttermilk with soda dissolved in it.
DO NOT ADD three cups of flour as indicated in the recipe.
Place batter into greased loaf pans and bake at 350º for one hour.
Enjoy scent of burnt “something” wafting through apartment.
Check oven in panic to discover that you have made charred banana-scented sludge– and ruined your loaf pans.
Go to store and pay lots of money to replace pans.
Sister-in-law’s first holiday ham: Baked ham with the plastic wrap on. To this day, ham jokes fly during the holiday season!
Newlyweds invite in-laws and guests from Australia for traditional American Thanksgiving. Clog kitchen sink drain. Wash turkey, produce and dishes in bathtub. Trust pop-up timer in turkey. Many hours after designated dining time, sit down to very dry turkey. Traditional? Perhaps.
A friend once told his teen-aged sister-in-law that the turkey neck was its penis. Then they boiled it to put the neck meat in the gravy. SIL had a gravy-less meal.
Starry eyed newlywed slaves over first post honeymoon meal. New china and silver. Damask tablecloth and candles. Hubby home with flowers. ” What’s that smell”? Bride was wondering same thing. Moral: always take guts out of chicken before you roast it.
that car is to die for adorable!!
http://www.thehunsblog.com w/ giveaway!
Olivia vaguely recalls making “Avocado Pie” that looked just like key lime pie in the photo.
**Gag**
Choked on first bite – threw the rest out!
Moral of the story: A picture may be worth a thousand words but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you should BELIEVE those words!
What an amusing anecdote from your childhood. Thank you for sharing your story with the rest of the community.
First Thanksgiving dinner as newlywed – decided to make Brie en Croute as appetizer. Followed recipe and brushed pastry with melted butter (lots), placed on cookie sheet and put into the oven. Oven erupts into flames shortly thereafter. Oh, you meant a cookie sheet with sides – like a jelly roll pan??!
You’ve been off the grid for awhile, Madam, but this post put’s you right back on top of the pile. It’s a beauty.
The first time hosting my in-laws, I made this German Chocolate Cake…
Carefully follow family recipe for homemade GC cake.
Have husband slice layers, because your hands are too unsteady.
Carefully follow family recipe for homemade coconut frosting.
Quickly realize homemade frosting is a disaster.
Send husband to store for canned coconut frosting.
Apply frosting to (by now) dried-out cake.
Place cake on beautiful cake plate that was a gift from sweet mother-in-law.
Serve dinner (not the cake, yet) to in-laws…
While your spotted-terror of a Dalmatian licks the store-bought icing off of about 1/3 of the cake.
Shrug.
Laugh.
Serve.
Chilled carrot ginger soup, anyone?
First, thanks to Bossy for sharing. Allow me to share the events last month’s Christmas dinner. We purchased a very pretty 19 lb turkey, which my loving spouse decided to thaw by leaving it in the unheated oven. The next day she and the kiddo decide to bake muffins, and so, they pre-heat the oven. Now a funny thing happens to turkey when it’s wrapped in plastic and heated to 350ºF. The plastic not only melts and fuses to the bird, it produces an oily plastic ash that, if released into the air, attaches itself inexorably to EVERY surface it contacts. I was driving downtown to drop work with a client when I receive the following call on my cell.
Her: “Babe, you mind making a stop on your way home?”
Me: “No, whaddya need?”
Her: “Another turkey.”
Me: “Are we having an extra 10 guests?”
Her: “Ummm. No.”
Me: “What happened to the first turkey?”
Her: “It. Ummmm. Melted.”
And you know the rest.
The lessons are these:
(1) Storing the frozen bird in the oven is as dangerous as storing it in a Citroen.
(2) Heating the bird in its plastic is as bad as heating it under acrylic towels.
(3) Next year we’re going to a Chinese restaurant.
Reminds me of the Thanksgiving my beer loving grandma forgot to turn on the oven after she put the bird in. We sat there for hours in her suffocating, hot house waiting to be fed before she realized the mistake. We ended up eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on T-day.
My gf gave me a fool proof pumpkin pie recipe. She forgot to tell me that they put wax paper in between the frozen pie shells. I still get teased.
Is your Dad really the President of Cuba?
seriously?
I was waiting for the part where everyone was doubled over vomiting the next morning, but it never came! I wish all turkeys looked like muppets.
Holy crap! Bossy’s mom was like fashion model HOT back in the day.
#19 redux, only with bag of turkey giblets instead of chicken. Also, when making mashed potatoes from scratch, a little extra milk and butter and a lot of extra mashing and beating produces fluffy white bookbinder’s glue.
My first Thanksgiving: organic turkey straight from farm stuffed with garlic, oranges, celery & fresh sage (dressing baked separately, a la Alton Brown), sweet potato casserole with orange syrup, homemade cranberry sauce with orange juice & zest, cranberry orange muffins… note the common thread here? Perhaps aunt’s new boyfriend could mention that he’s deathly allergic to citrus BEFORE having to go to the ER….
My ex-husband (and no, I didn’t divorce him over this, the turkey) put the Thanksgiving turkey in the LOWER part of the fridge in the garage instead of the UPPER part which was the f-r-e-e-z-e-r part…….four weeks later on the day it was needed for thawing….ugh there sat that turkey in the fridge! One day before the big day we had to locate a ready-to-cook turkey. I don’t recall what we did, but it’s the Thanksgiving I recall the most.
Is it just me?
or do all of the disasters sound like the best dinner ever (as long as I am not the one cleaning up)
You have your mother’s cheekbones! Lovely.
Bossy’s hot dad + Bossy’s hot mom = Hot Bossy
Also, I once made a chocolate cake with raspberry filling that resembled a gruesome crime scene. I was young, and didn’t realize that you had to let a cake cool completely before shoving in the ooey, gooey raspberry compote-y filling. My husband called it the chocolate chainsaw massacre cake. It tasted super, though.