Thanksgiving Upside Down

“Used to call you my backwards baby, crazy, silly, mixed up lady, asleep in the morning, wide awake at night. Wardrobe just a little shabby, figure just a little flabby, never seem to get it just exactly right………..Used to come home in the evening. I’ll admit that I was dreaming you’d be waiting there with candlelight and wine. But I’d find you at your leisure. You’d pull a chicken from the freezer, asking did I think we could get it done on time. But in your sweet, sweet, sweet imperfection, Honey, you got nothin’ to rise above. In your sweet, sweet, sweet imperfection. I’m satisfied with your sweet imperfect love…” “Sweet Imperfection” by Norman Dovberg

Readers know I married a “ditzy” artist whose creativity extends well beyond art. From her charming mixed metaphors, malapropisms, unique pronunciations, garbled idioms and, not least of all, to her cooking style I have been provided with an ongoing comedy routine that has delighted my heart for over half a century. (Check out my recent blog, ” I Didn’t Marry Her for Her Cooking.”) She has cooked a lot in the past, but to keep things straight, must slavishly follow directions and measure everything precisely. This renders meal prep an onerous task for her. To free her to create art, my retirement job was to take over the kitchen. Since then, Sandy’s cooking chops had slipped quite a bit.

When my illness forced me to give up my chef role, we devised a system that cast me as issuing instructions while she prepared the food. It’s worked pretty well and is readying her for the time when she will need to cook for herself alone.

We both love Thanksgiving because it is a secular feast day that requires you simply to chill out and pig out with friends and loved ones. Yes, it requires a lot of work in the kitchen, but that was always half the fun— for me. This year, because our loved ones included six adults, two young children and four dogs at my daughters home, we decided it would be too much for me to deal with and opted to celebrate at home with a pair of close friends who have no local family. They would provide several side dishes and we would prepare the bird.

For my lovely sous chef, worries began early as she braved the supermarket in search of a small enough frozen bird at the low special price. Not to worry, a 12.5 pounder was secured. Her worries continued, though, as each day passed with it “defrosting” in the refrigerator yet remaining rock hard. I knew that would be easy to deal with and tried to calm her nerves, but she couldn’t relax until Thursday morning when not only did it show signs of softening up, but a shower under cold running water finished the job as I’d known it would.

Now all that remained between a juicy golden skinned show bird and our tummies was the simple preparation for roasting and a stay in the oven for the requisite time. Sandy started a stock using the giblets, mixed up the stuffing, cooked cranberries into a relish, placed the bird into the roasting pan. She had baked an apple upside down cake the day before. She set the table with our fancy china and crystal. It was all over but the roasting. She had done herself proud. The worrying was almost over.

She put the turkey and stuffing into the oven at the requisite times, I opened a lovely six year old Bordeaux and decanted it, and we sat back and awaited our guests who arrived with enough mashed sweet potatoes, white potatoes, roasted pumpkin with brussels sprouts and fruit salad to have made the turkey superfluous.

But the bird, after all, is the star. At the time it was due to be ready, I took a look at it. It looked perfect and a thermometer said it was done, but there was something unusual about it that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, and the pop up timer was nowhere to be seen. After a few puzzled moments the reason became clear. Unbeknownst to me, my creative chef had placed the bird upside down in the roaster.

We all had a laugh and got down to serious eating. Surprise! The upside down turkey was divine, and because the breast had rested in the cooking juices, the breast meat, that can get dried out, was moist and tender perfection. Unwittingly, my “backwards baby” had pulled off a culinary coup that will go down in the family annals among our fondest holiday memories.

I wish I could credit her with having been the innovator of this technique, but it turns out an internet search revealed this is a well established variation on turkey roasting, preferred by many. Who knew?

And the apple upside down cake? Well, that she flipped over and served right side up, a perfect counterbalance to her upside down turkey. And also quite delicious.