eating autumn

Days are getting shorter, temps are cooler. We are filling up our stores for winter. Early this week, we picked up our pork share (half a piggy, bacon and smoked meat to come later). Our vegetable share is now filled with root vegetables (up to 18 pounds this week of potatoes, onions, daikon radishes, carrots, and beets) and some greens and cabbages. And yesterday, we picked up two turkeys, 17 pounds and 23 pounds, respectively. That makes forty pounds of bird!

Saturday, friends Rusty and Sarah hosted their annual cider pressing party, and we were (typical!) the first to arrive. They were still getting the press put together, but it wasn't long before we were dumping apples into the hopper and churning out apple mush to press into cider. Rusty's truck was loaded up with 20 bushels for the kids to put into buckets to bring into the garage. Binbin had a grand time with new friends, running around the yard and setting up base in the old chicken coop. Freshly made doughnuts kept everyone fueled up for the duration.

We cut out a bit early in order to make one more social stop to Dave and Irene's place where Dave was cooking up his buffalo wings. He even made a few "naked" (without the spicy sauce) for Binbin, who gobbled those up in no time. Delicious home-made deep-fried food times two! Is this what junk foodie heaven is like?

We went home well-fed and proceeded to...brine our 17-pound turkey. Yeah, we probably should have hit the sack, but we decided that we wanted to cook one of birds fresh. So, into the cooler it went...along with two cups of salt and plenty of water. I couldn't make it until midnight, so the bird came out of its salt water bath after only 2.5 hours. I dried it off, put is back into the cooler and set it into the breezeway until morning.

Well, I'm now won over to the brining and drying process because this bird was the most delicious turkey I've ever eaten. The skin (which was buttered and salted before going into the 425 degree convection roasting oven) came out like Peking Duck! Crisp and salty. While the meat was tender and moist. It had flavor without being gamey. Amazingly, since our oven runs like an oven on steroids, the 17 pound bird took a about 2 hours to cook! We invited friends to join us for 1 o'clock supper...well the bird came out of the oven at 11 am, and rested an extra long time. Fortunately, a bird that big stays warm a pretty long lime.

So, Thanksgiving dinner rehearsal was a success, and we learned some lessons along the way, so come late November we should have the timing better. We invited Binbin's friend Anja and her parents, Carl and Lorraine, to help us eat the turkey, gravy, cornbread stuffing, corn and peas (from this summer's CSA), cranberry sauce, and rolls. We never managed to get to the salad. Binbin and Anja played in our pile of leaves, before tromping in for baked apples, which Lorraine brought to share. Everything was delicious, and we were so happy to feast with friends.