Well ... The Day Didn't Go As Planned ...

Perhaps, as may have happened to many of you, the day got away from me.

Telephone ringing like a five-alarm fire (which, coincidentally, I slept through the other night - two-blocks over), family dropping in for visits, more telephone calls, the Aunt, shopping ...

One of those days, just not enough hours ...

Humorous observation: Hit the local Whole Foods Market, where there was a line, waiting, for the smaller-sized shopping carts they provide (and every other supermarket should follow suit, instead of pushing around their 1970's-Cadillac-sized ones)... I couldn't resist .. Walked a few feet down to the register area, retrieved an empty, small-sized cart no longer being used, and walked by the line waiting ...

And, taking a spin out on the World Wide Web, I espied two rather interesting posts, one bemoaning tomorrow's main course, the other, enlightening, offering an alternative;

Matthew Yglesias with Truth to Power: Turkey Sucks

Ever noticed that your favorite dishes from your traditional family Thanksgiving are all sides? And that that one time you had Thanksgiving dinner outside your traditional family gathering the best dishes there were sides? And how when your friends organized a fauxsgiving festival the week before Thanksgiving the best dishes were sides? That’s because turkey doesn’t taste good.

To which Erza Klein swooped in with;

A NEW DAY FOR TURKEY

So as long as turkey is going to sit like a colossus atop the Thanksgiving meal, we may as well figure out a way to reduce its suck factor. Brining is certainly a player here, as are rubs, smaller turkeys, and aromatics. But we need to be bolder.

As Mark Bittman says, part of the problem with Thanksgiving turkey is that we insist on cooking it whole. This is a big bird. By the time the thickest, most protected meat is cooked through, Much of the rest has the pleasing texture of dirt cake. It's true that a series of labor and time intensive techniques (like brining) can mildly counteract that, but you can only take it so far.

And, Emptywheel, over on Firedoglake, offers a defense of the Bird-of-the-Day;

Lucky for me and my co-turkey mates, in Ann Arbor's near environs there are now a number of farmers growing heritage turkeys--and at way cheaper prices than the heritage turkey I bought last year. These are, of course, turkeys that still taste like turkey, rather than saline-injected protein delivery systems.

And for those of you briners searching for an easier way to cook the perfect bird--and yes, even for Spencer, with his salivating over bacon-wrapped pork--the real trick is bacon.

Yes, bacon.

Just slap a pound of bacon on top. It's the perfect way to slowly apply salt to the meat and it keeps the bird perfectly moist without basting. And by the time the Detroit Lions manage to lose another game, that bacon's perfectly cooked for a mid-afternoon snack, just when it's time to start browning the bird.

Check them out, or better yet, read them at the dinner table to see how the rest of the family reacts.

If you haven't already gone dysfunctional, having been argument-free up to this point, this discussion may kick it in gear.

Meanwhile, enjoy a piece of "Cheese Cake", courtesy of Dexter Gordon