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I made it. I’m typing this from Long Island. I made it in last night at 12.30am. Today has been a prepin’ for T2: Thanksgiving Day, the second deep fryed turkey. I’ll be trying a different recipie this time so we’ll see if that changes anything….

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.