Tiny Turkey

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. The food, oh my goodness, the food! This is a holiday when all the family and friends gather and share their favorite foods. Turkey and dressing, mac and cheese, corn pie, green bean casserole, pecan pie and I could go on and on. Foods that we don't usually enjoy all year long... Except at Thanksgiving.

We start a month before making out the menu for the delicious, once a year, dinner. I say once a year because if we sample all the items brought for this meal, we are probably talking about three to four thousand calories. And you don't just eat once on Thanksgiving. You come back in the kitchen later in the evening and start all over again.

My sons and husband make requests for their favorite foods every year so I have to make sure that I make extra dressing for one son, extra mac and cheese for the other son and broccoli casserole for my husband.

And, some of our guests may request certain foods that they really liked and we try to oblige them. By the time everyone contributes whatever their specialties are and what our family has prepared, we have quite a spread.

Since our family generally “hosts” Thanksgiving dinner, we usually prepare the turkey. I love cooking the turkey. Sometimes I stuff the turkey’s cavity with apples and onions, sometimes I put sprigs of Rosemary under the breast skin!

I'm getting hungry as I think about all this food.

Anyway, one year one of my cousins decided that he wanted to roast the turkey so I said I thought that that would be wonderful if he really wanted to do it.

The big day came and we all patiently waited for this golden brown, fat turkey to arrive. And, arrive it did! My cousin rang the doorbell; we answered. In his hands, he had this huge turkey wrapped in aluminum foil on this enormous tray! “My goodness,” I thought. “That bird must weigh 25 or more pounds!” He came through the front door struggling to hold the turkey and made his way over to the dinner table. My boys gathered around him and waited to see him unwrap this bird and place it on the dining room table.

Slowly he unwrapped it.

“Hurry up,” I thought. “I'm ready to eat!”

Slowly, slowly he was unwrapping the foil that surrounded the bird.

And there it was—the tiniest golden-brown Cornish hen that we had ever seen. It could not have weighed a pound. And the looks on my sons’ faces were priceless.

They were as disappointed as they could be and then everyone started to laugh because he had really pulled one over on us! My boys couldn't stop looking at this tiny turkey ‘cause they had never seen anything so small. My cousin then went out the front door to his car and brought in the “real” turkey. It was delicious and moist and one of the best we had ever eaten.

All of this just set the mood for the remainder of this favorite holiday and we laughed, and ate and shared stories for the rest of the day and on into the evening.

And, guess what?

We all went back into the kitchen that night and started eating all over again! What're another three to four thousand calories anyway?

Do we have any more deviled eggs?

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours from us and ours!