Thank God/Allah Morocco has a Marjane. This unfathomable Oasis located in most of the large cities throughout the country, is basically a Target, Walmart, and Best Buy in one. It's a rather large treasure chest of all things branded and that should come with warranties. It even has cheese! Real, delicious, fatty, sometimes rotting, fantastical cheese. But, for all intensive purposes, on this occasion it had celery, canned and pitted black olives, canned corn and canned peas! All necessary components to the Thanksgiving extravaganza I had been planning for Nathaniel and I. So all that was left to get in Sedona-miz was some taters, onions, and of course... the piece de resistance... the turkey... er, well, chicken as turkey is bloody expensive in this neck of the woods.
So, my lovely host sister comes with me to the chicken guy, we order a 2 kilo bird to go and, low and behold, the butcher yoinks some poor unsuspecting fowl (to be fair... not so unsuspecting as they are in full view of their friend's prior death, they know what's coming to them) out of the shoulder height cage, pins the poor sucker to the ground, and Sweeny Todds the buggers throat and ankles, tosses him into a trashcan with fellow victims, and allows him to drain. Post blood emptying, he pushes the little guy against this quickly rotating metal wheel which de-feathers like none other. Holy crap that thing was magical. Anyways, he gives the birdie a good rub down under the faucet and asks me how I want it chopped up. I let him know I'm cooking the not so lucky duck whole, so he chops the head off, wraps it in some brown paper, and I carry the still warm soon-to-be-dinner off to Nathaniel's in a plastic bag. Delightful.
I get to Nathaniel's house, only slightly still traumatized, and we decide to start cooking around 2, since God knows how long it was going to take in the no-gauge oven. Round about 2ish we busted (that's for you Pete) out Grandma's stuffing and then went for the cleaning of the bird... I knew I had to get the neck off, maybe some of the extra fat, but what awaited me inside of the rather puny-sized cavity, I didn't really anticipate. As I reached in to survey how much stuffing we could in fact stuff into the the little guy, I realized there was still some stuffage present. This is the equivalent of accidentally baking the little plastic bag with the guts inside the turkey. Only without the plastic baggy. I quickly got friendly with the heart, lungs, liver, etc. Still warm and all. My poor Greenpeace friends are stoning me through the computer, I can tell. At the time it was hysterical though, which may or may not have been helped by the wine we had begun to dabble into.
Well, we successfully got our little friend in the oven by at least 230 I reckon.... and didn't eat until around 730. Freaking 2 kilo bird took 5 hours! Moral of the story is, it was worth it. To have a little piece of home in my belly was worth sticking my hand up into our friend's belly... and butt... and other orifices.
Well we are off to make banana bread french toast now, so I will bid you adieu! Will update after this weekends sheep slaughter and l'3id extravaganza, which I'm sure will blow any turkey... chicken story out of the water.
Love ya'll!
Donielle:
ReplyDeleteHappy Thanksgiving.
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lol, Chris and I would always head to the Marjane to hitch out of cities because they were right off the main road at the edge of town, and always doubled as a bus stop if we failed. Come to think of it though, never shopped there. Your Thanksgiving sounds like it was awesome.
ReplyDeletegotta love the spammers! even if it's spam with good intentions, spam none the less. yuck.
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