If you surf the popular food magazine and recipe sites, you'll see all the familiar Thanksgiving features. One of my favorites is the list of Thanksgiving disaster stories. I don't know why. I'm never one to slow down on the 405-south, craning my neck to stare at twisted metal and flashing lights. But when it's cooking and baking, others' turkey misery is strangely entertaining. Perhaps it just makes me feel all the better that I would never allow such idiotic things to happen to me. The thing is, we usually don't hear about disasters until after the big day.
This year, the big turkey tragedy happens before Thanksgiving, and I am the idiot. I bought a frozen turkey yesterday (two days before Thanksgiving), which is definitely not a problem. Back in my high-tech consulting days when I was out-of-town on business until the day before, I have gone from frozen bowling ball of a bird to perfectly roasted golden delicious in less time. A quick thaw can be done with cold water in just a few hours. I have done this before. Many many many times.
But I guess I got a little too confident. Too much the cocky cook. I started thawing the frozen turkey at noon yesterday, and I am guessing that by about 6 pm, it was completely thawed. Then I forgot about it, and fell asleep. I jumped out of bed this morning at 6 am in a cold sweat, ran to the kitchen and yes...the turkey was thawed, and had been sitting in room temperature water for almost 6 hours. If you know your food safety, that makes for a very bad turkey. I threw my thawed, but take-no-chances turkey in the trash.
I started over. This time, I'm being as careful as I was with my very first bird.
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