The purpose of this is to make you laugh. A few years ago, I had been very very busy until Christmas eve so that was the only day I had to go and do my shopping for the holidays. I thought I'll get there early and get it done and over with quickly so I can enjoy a few hours to myself on Christmas eve. My husband was at work (not many people have time off in England on Christmas eve so you have the turkey Christmas day) so I went all by myself at 8 in the morning. The first thing I did was go to the butcher's section for a turkey. They only had 3 left and I got the smallest one. Guess how much it weighed? ...... 18lbs and it cost a lot too but I was having people over the next day and wanted a full turkey rather than the crown that I used to buy ordinarily. I picked it up and did the rest of the shopping. The supermarket was so busy that if I had missed something in an isle, there was not enough room to turn the shopping trolley around or even reverse with it. You had to go round and come back again like a one way system. In the end I managed to get out of the shop at 12:30.
The next day I calculated the cooking time and it was 8 HOURS! So I knew that we weren't going to have the turkey for lunch time as it is traditionally done. It just about fitted it in a huge roasting tin. Wrapped it over with foil and it went in the oven. About 6 hours later there was a little bit of smoke in the kitchen. It smelt like burnt oil. My husband went to look and told me not to get to close to the oven just in case. He opened the oven door and started to laugh as loads of smoke came out of the oven. What had happened was that one of the legs of the turkey had came out of the string and had popped out of the foil. So there was a huge whole in the foil with an end of a leg poking through. There really wasn't much point in wrapping it over again although I tried a bit but it didn't really work. So it went back in the oven for another 2 hours and as it cooked more, we had more smoke come out to the point where we had to open the kitchen window on a freezing day.
When it was cooked I went to put it in my biggest serving dish which is 32inches in diameter and it didn't fit on there. In the end I had to take one of the legs off and serve that in a different dish. All my fantasies of this whole nicely roasted turkey was gone but we laughed a lot as we ate it with our guests in the evening. It did taste a little bit dry but was still very yummy. The next day we ended up cleaning the oven.
I wonder if anyone has been through anything like that? I have made sure to order a small turkey well in advance since then :)
Lily
I just came to your blog via Wendy. I have been nosing around and came to this post and have laughed so hard that I had to reply. Not that I was laughing at you but I have been married for 33 yrs now and I think I have the whole book on turkey diasters. From cooking it with the giblets still in the plastic bag inside to dropping a done bird on the floor, from half done birds to cooking it in an electric roaster so close to my heat control it made my house unbearly cold for dinner,but I think my worse was having the beautiful bird on the huge serving platter of grams on a linen tablecloth with candles, days of cooking sides and the stinkin dog sitting in the middle of the table when the guests arrived. (Yes the Norman Rockwell turkey was well eaten) Thanks for the memories...at least I can laugh at myself! Love your blog! Big hugs from the states...Beth
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