deep fryed pictures

Marvel at oil bubbling. Wonder how we packed that many people into my apartment. See me like you’ve never seen me before (because in the end it’s all about me… after me it’s probably all about Tony). Check out the pictures from the Redneck/White Trash Thanksgiving Party (note: you’ll need to join oFoto to view them…). Eat yer heart out Cindy.

‘nother quickie

I’m still recovering from doing one turkey and in three days it’s “T2: Thanksgiving Day” in Amityville, NY. The audience participation thing I’ve been alluding to should be up tomorrow. I’ve just been too busy to get it up. But my plan is to have it up by tomorrow so that anyone who wishes to participate can work on it over the weekend. In the meantime I hope I’m peaking your curiosity…. :-)

confirmation

I talked earlier today with Keith, my turkey-frying guru. After some consultation he did confirm my suspicions: I overcooked my turkey by about five minutes. Sorry about that to all those good souls who attended the event. The good news is I won’t make this mistake again. Perhaps this will be an excuse to have a future party…. We shall see….

no… more… turkey…

We were successful. I have deep-fried a turkey. Wow. For the most part it went off without a hitch. The turkey was yummy (though it could have been better, more on that in a bit). No one was burned (rock on)! And my house is still here! For those interested here is the rough timeline of events:

Tuesday – The 21lb 22oz Turkey goes into the fridge to start to defrost.

Saturday 4.25pm – I set up the turkey fryer. My friend Tak comes over to help. Together they pour over 4 gallons of oil into the pot. The fryer successfully lights (without any explosions). The oil starts to heat (it’s gotta get up to 350 degrees before the turkey goes in.

4.25pm – 5.15pm – Tak watches the oil heat. I spend most of my time rubbing down the turkey with spices and injecting it with the marinade. I come to the decision that I don’t like sticking my arm inside a turkey. The oil’s hit 350.

5.20pm – Guests start to arrive. The help me get the turkey onto the frying stand and we carry it down. The turkey goes in and the oil boils over (lesson 1), scaring us a little and killing a small patch of the lawn. The fryer settles down. The temperature dropped (lesson 2) after the bird was added so we turned up the heat.

5.20pm – 6.40ishpm – Fry turkey fry!

6.45pm – Turkey comes out. Sweet Potato Fries go in.

6.55pm – Fries come out and the oil is shut off to cool. Now that it’s drained, the turkey is ready to carve. This is a first for me and I’m clueless. Mark first informs me that I have the turkey upside down and I’ve been trying to carve the back (lesson 3). Lara, Joel’s wife, gives me a crash course in carving a turkey (lesson 4). Thanks to Sarah and Denis for bringing the ultra cool carving board.

7.00pm – Everyone is eating! In an hour and forty minutes we cooked a 21lb turkey! I try the white trash “wine” Tony brought. Never drink wine that has a screw off cap (lesson 5).

       flash forward

10.00pm – Last guests leave

10.10pm – I’m in bed asleep

It was a great evening. There were a couple more things that I learned. The turkey was probably in about five minutes too long so it was a little drier than it should have been. So that’s something I have a better handle on for next time (lesson 6). Also, I’m not going to use the store bough marinade next time. It was way to salty (lesson 7). It could also be that the bird was salty as well. All I know is I woke up really dehydrated in the middle of the night; my apologies to anyone who had the same experience. But all and all it was a great first try! Thanks to everyone who joined in the experiment: Tak, Jenny, Aaron, Mark, Kim, Ken, Jen, Joel, Lara, Hannah, Abby, Tina, Chuck, Tony, Angie, Patrik, Eric, Andy, Novak, Aaron, Maria, Sarah, Dennis and all those whose names are just not coming to me now! Jenny and Andy documented a lot of this so pictures will be coming. Oh, one last lesson: after a while, you can get real sick of the smell of turkey.

I was going to post more about the Turkey fest. But, for those of you who don’t know yet, another plane went down in NYC; crashed into a residential section of Queens. No word yet on the cause. While the news wasn’t as numbing as two months ago, I feel a bit more empty. More cynical. Neither shocked nor suprised. And just not in the mood for jokes or storytelling.

For the moment all I want to do is fight the desire to jump to a conclusion about the cause. I don’t want to assume anything.

34 quarts of deep fryin’ action just waiting for a turkey

I did it. Now all I have to do is start following NASCAR and western NY’s conversion of me to a red neck will be complete. Yesterday I became the proud owner of a 34-quart Turkey Deep Fryer/Steamer/Boiler purchased at Home Depot. Over the last two weeks I think I’ve checked out every fryer here in town. The entire process has put me into a strange state of both questioning my sanity and getting really excited at the prospect of next weekend. Why next weekend you ask? Because I’m hosting a “Red Neck/White Trash Thanksgiving Community Meal.” That translates to I’m deep-frying a 20lb turkey yeee-haaw!!!! The excitement around this event has begun to grow. Folks around here are really into the idea. Plus my friends from around the country have started to offer advice and share stories. I just got some great suggestions from Natalie and Cindy had posted some great turkey frying stuff on her blog a few days ago! Invites have started to go out. If you haven’t gotten one and you’re going to be in the Rochester area on Saturday, November 16 drop me e-mail and I’ll get you an evite (Alyson: your evite is in the mail, I know you will stop by for deep fried goodness)! This also will be a precursor to convincing my family to let me deep fry a small turkey as part of our home Thanksgiving celebration. I’ll keep you up to date on that.

my new pen pal

The other news in my life is I have a new electronic pen pal: *drum roll please* Henry Rollins! Yes, sensing my innate hipness during our brief conversation, Henry sought out this page and began writing me e-mails begging me to be an e-mail buddy. At first I pushed him away because he seemed so desperate, but after a while I took pity on him and chose to write back….

     …. what?….

                  … oh, the truth? …

         ……..sigh….. ok….

I’d better tell the truth before I’m hunted down by an aging alternative icon who, though being a very peaceful person, would kick my butt while Slayer blares in the background and then share the story with countless college audiences across the country. At the RIT show we went to he spend a long time talking about a recent trip to India. As part of it he spoke about the child beggars (often who were crippled) that he encountered there. He had mentioned he wondered how/why they became beggars. Being the trivia sponge I am, I knew the answer but when I got the chance to talk to him I wasn’t able to share the info. So on a whim, I dropped a note with the info to his website. Last night while going through junk e-mail I spotted a note from an address I didn’t recognize (not the usual porn services, get rich quick schemes or stock tips). Just as I was about to deleted it, I noticed the subject line “HR” and the e-mail address. One double click later and there it was: a short reply from the man himself thanking me for the info. How cool is that??!!! I had one additional question for him so I replyed to the note. We’ll see if he responds (though I fully expect he will ’cause he’s good like that).

So what have I learned from this experience?

deep fried bits of goodness

Mark’s Car: Just a few updates on past blog issues. The clutch did go in Mark’s car. After 134,000+ miles it really didn’t owe him anything.

Turkey:The plans for the deep fried turkey continue. And before you think I’m crazy, know that Martha’s done it too. I pick up the fryer tomorrow. I think I may even have convinced my mother to let me do one at home too!

Other: I haven’t been to the YMCA to swim in a while. I was supposed to go this morning but I managed to pull a muscle/muscle group in my back last night at Martial Arts and even the though of doing the crawl right now is pretty painful. We’ll be announcing the casting for the plays tomorrow. And finally my lust for Alyson Hannigan continues unabated.