The Joy of Cooking a Thanksgiving Turkey for One

Prior to Thanksgiving, my tradition is to buy a turkey at City Market when they are on sale for mere cents per pound. I cook it, serve some, and save the rest for leftovers including boiling the bones to make broth for soup.

This year, probably due to COVID slovenliness and the COVID habit of averting my eyes from the price of food, I bought a turkey at Natural Grocers. It cost almost four times as much as the bargain turkey I was used to, but it was free range. Later I found out that free range meant 2.4 square feet, or greater, per bird. COVID isolation is bad, but turkeys have it worse.

I felt liberated that I was cooking a Thanksgiving turkey for just me. No time schedule. If it was running late, I had more time to get into that box wine that was supposed to be for dinner. If it was undercooked or overcooked, I would be the only one to know. I’d just chalk it up to inedible Thanksgiving Day entertainment.

Will the real turkey please stand up?

Then my dog Bodie and I were invited to Thanksgiving dinner at John and Mary’s, all in compliance with Colorado COVID Level Orange – High Risk. This was a delightful turn of events. Who wants to eat Thanksgiving dinner alone? And now I could cook my turkey the day before Thanksgiving and freeze it for later.  What could go wrong?

I took my time reviewing the preparation and cooking instructions. My cheap turkeys always had a built-in button that popped up when the turkey was done. But this highfalutin free range turkey was absent the button. Time to get out the meat thermometer.

Removing the giblets and neck from the turkey innards was a cold slimy job. Shouldn’t a guy be doing this? But I forged on, rinsing the turkey, patting it dry, brushing oil and spices on it, and placing it in the roasting pan. Into the oven it went for over a couple of hours.

Meanwhile, I cleaned up the turkey prep mess surrounding my kitchen sink. Yuck. Then I Googled ‘Where to put the thermometer in the turkey’ and watched a Youtube video. It seemed pretty simple.

The timer went off. I pulled the turkey out and inserted the meat thermometer into what I thought was a the proper place. The temperature was perfect to pronounce the turkey done. Success! I celebrated with a glass of wine while the turkey cooled for a half-hour, and watched another video on how to carve a turkey, since there was no guy to do it.

Before I sharpened my carving knife, I took a photo of my roasted turkey. I thought it looked great! Then I set about following the video, first carving out the drumsticks.

Next, I was to carve out the breast meat. But I couldn’t find the breastbone that was to guide my carving.

Oh oh. Did I put the turkey in the pan upside down? How could I be so lame? With trepidation, I turned the turkey over, and sure enough there was the breastbone and presumably undercooked breast meat.

My faux pas masquerading as a turkey went back into the oven right side up. When I thought it might be done, I pulled it out, let it rest, then continued carving it. I put some white meat in a salad and 16 hours later have not gotten sick. As I ate my salad, it occurred to me that if I had bought one of those cheap turkeys with a button in it, I would not have put it in the pan upside down, because the button is on top. That I knew.

As I write this story, it’s Thanksgiving morning. I received an email from a stranger:

“thanks for turkey gravy packet info, i won’t use, tks”.

Apparently, six years later, while perusing the internet, she found a humor piece I wrote in 2011, reprinted in 2014, about my 2011 Thanksgiving misadventures with a Jenny-O turkey containing a nasty gravy packet. You can read that article here.

I’m resigned to the fact that I’m not the best turkey roaster. I’m the roasted turkey in this tale. But I do feel satisfied that, six years later, my reprinted turkey article was read by a stranger, and prevented her from making a lethal Thanksgiving turkey mistake today.

Isn’t that why we write? To entertain and inform?

Later today I’ll be sharing Thanksgiving dinner with friends at their home. It’s a good Thanksgiving after all.