Well, of course I couldn't let too long go by before I talked about our gorgeous smoked turkey. As you might recall, I kinda got into barbequeing this year and bought a Weber bullet smoker. I talked to a lot of people about smoking the turkey and got thumbs up all around, so I decided to take the plunge and do it. I knew that it would mean that I had to brine it, dry it thoroughly and risk drying the whole thing out leaving us with tasty, but quite lonely side dishes, everyone agreed that we should go for it. I was even more pleased with the decision when our power went out and stayed out a couple of days last week. When we were at Safeway there were a lot of people wondering whether they were going to have a turkey at all if the power didn't come back on - well, we wouldn't have that problem. No matter what we'd have a turkey, and a cooked one at that.
I very narrowly thought everyone had turkey on Thanksgiving, but I talked to a co-worker and he said they had ham. Huh, ham on Thanksgiving? But I caught myself, if that's what they want, well, bully for them - but not us. Turkey is our tradition and I couldn't imagine having anything else.
Every year though I remember one of the Thanksgivings I spent in London. Of course there, it is just a day, nothing special but I was working with a bunch of Americans and one of them, you know who you are Mary, was really longing for Thanksgiving. So, of course, when you're in London and you're longing to celebrate an American holiday where do you go? Yep, of course the pub. So off to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese we went. This is one of the really cool pubs (but then again there are so many!) in London and it was close to work. We even went up to the restaurant part and sat at a table. We had a really delightful lunch - it wasn't turkey, but it was pretty special. And it took care of one of the great aspects of Thanksgiving - spending time with people you really like.
Anyway, back to the turkey. Since I had no idea how to smoke a turkey, I turned to a really simple recipe - yeah right, not so much. I took the recipe from Serious Barbecue by Adam Perry Lang. It is a fantastic barbecue book, but it definitely requires reading through the recipes more than a few times. If you are a serious barbecuer and don't have this book, you really should get it - it's outstanding. I'm not going to provide the recipe for this turkey - sorry it would take me three hours just to type it in, so if you want it you're going to have to buy the book. What I will do is show you some lovely pictures of our buxom bird. Maybe it will inspire you to smoke a bird of your own.
Well, it's true another Thanksgiving gone. I have no idea where this fall has gone but gone it is so time to focus on food for the upcoming holidays. There is always something to celebrate, isn't there?
