Come oh come ye tea-thirsty restless ones -- the kettle boils, bubbles and sings, musically. ~ Rabindranath Tagore
Good evening, Kibitzers! The New York City area had a wintry storm the day before Thanksgiving, causing untold difficulty for all the people who needed to travel to be with family and friends for the holiday. (Not to mention for those who wanted to wait in the parking lot of some big box store, for whom I feel less sympathy, and those who had to get to work at big box stores, who should never have had to go out to begin with.)
I am located north and west of the city, so we tend to be on the snowy side of the rain/snow line. I was expecting the heavy, wet snow and sleet to take the power out, but hoping very hard that I could get my giant turkey cooked first. I do not do family dinner on Thanksgiving, but save that for later and instead cook for a community dinner given by a UU church in the now-not-so-nearby small city of Plainfield, where many run out of money before they run out of month. That's why that Wednesday night found me roasting the hugest turkey I could haul out of the store and really sweating out the pop-up timer.
I figured it had maybe an hour to go when everything went dark. But I did not panic! An oven is a well-insulated thing, which is why it can be 350° on the inside and 68° six inches away on the outside. I was pretty sure that there'd be enough heat trapped inside to continue cooking until the turkey reached the right temperature. The trouble was that I could not see inside the oven without opening it, and once I opened it, I was screwed if it was too early. So, I elected to wait two hours, just to be on the safe side.
We do have a generator, bought in 2011 after the Halloween snowstorm of that year took out the power for almost a week. My dad went back and forth on its size for a long time, but finally decided on one that can run the whole house, including fridge, except for the electric range and clothes dryer. That saved money and is absolutely fine for most purposes. The microwave will work, and we have one of those propane burners for "stove" top cooking. But I desperately did not want to dismember an undercooked 24-pound turkey and microwave each of its parts (nor roll the big generator out into the freezing driveway and start it, come to that. It's a production.) So I was pleased to find that, after the two-hour nailbiter, my stupendous fowl was just a bit overcooked, which is why gravy was invented, and no microwaving was required.
On the upside, it was easily cold enough to use the car as a refrigerator, so all the carved, cooked turkey went out there along with the giant pans of cornbread stuffing and broccoli with cheese sauce. In the morning, the storm was over, the actual accumulation wasn't enough to force me to shovel the driveway so as to back out, and the roads were clean and salty. The food got to people who needed it, and I was happy.
Below the gravy blot are more pretty snow pictures. How was your Thanksgiving weather?
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Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of the evening around a virtual kitchen table with kossacks who are caring and supportive of one another. So bring your stories, jokes, photos, funny pics, music, and interesting videos, as well as links—including quotations—to diaries, news stories, and books that you think this community would appreciate. Readers may notice that most who post diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but newcomers should not feel excluded. We welcome guests at our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.
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