A Turkey With A Goiter

In the interest of full disclosure I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a professional turkey roaster. In fact, while I do quite well with turkey breasts, I am extremely intimidated by whole, entire turkeys. You know, the kind that come complete with legs and cavities stuffed full of rather yukky things enclosed in slimy bags? Those kinds of turkeys?

Well, a few weeks ago, some friends of ours generously gave us a whole turkey which I laid gently in the freezer to deal with at a later (and more courageous) time in my life.

Last week, that time arrived. The grocery budget was a little (a lot) slim and I thought, "I've got that 13-pound turkey in the freezer. I can create a whole bunch of meals from that!"

And so I thawed it. And then set it on the counter. And surveyed it from a distance. And pondered it. And surveyed it. And pondered some more.

And then I crept slowly and cautiously up to the turkey (as though it might leap upon me at any moment) and conducted a little exploratory excursion into the "cavity." And in the midst of my excursion, I touched the mysterious innards.

I shuddered! I backed away slowly! I did what I have done for twenty-seven years in times of duress.

I yelled, "STEVE!"

Steve appeared on the scene with great expediency to see why his wife was in the kitchen yelling like a panicked maniac.

I said to him, "Steve, you're an Eagle Scout. You have camped and foraged for food and dealt with many yucky things along the way. So I need for you to please remove the innards from the turkey for me because I just can't handle doing it myself." (Yes, I AM a bit squeamish, in case you're wondering.)

So Steve gallantly scrubbed his hands (as though preparing for surgery) and began to rummage around inside Sir Turkey while I stayed a safe ten feet away and made lots of "Ewwww" noises in order to further encourage him.


I was also being very helpful by reading the instructions to him which were going on and on about all sorts of lovely things like the following: Tie legs together; skewer the neck skin to the back; if there is no band of skin, tie the drumsticks securely to the tail using 100 percent cotton string; twist wing tips under the back.

And stuff like that.

Once we had figured out (Steve close up; me from a distance) what all we were going to skewer, tie, and/or twist, we had to decide how we were going to season the turkey.

And may I add that this entire process had been accompanied by many shrieks, giggles and guffaws on our part as we wrestled ye olde turkey to the mat. (Although you can't really tell it from these particular pictures where Steve is so seriously concentrating on the job at hand.)





I thought back to the only time in my life that I had prepared a whole turkey before (with my friend, Leeanne's help), and remembered that she had lifted up the skin (ewwww) and put butter underneath it.

So, from my vast well of whole turkey roasting expertise, I informed Steve that we needed to put butter under the skin.

He strode boldly over to the fridge, got half a stick of butter and just STUCK it under the skin.

Like this!



By this time, I was in utter hysterics. I said, "Oh, it looks like the poor turkey has a GOITER!"

We both lost it. Entirely and completely.

After we had finally gotten ourselves back under control, I convinced Steve that we had to soften the butter and THEN put it under the skin. So he surgically removed the "goiter" (with me still "ewwwww-ing") and I ventured forth bravely from my hiding place at the end of the counter to soften it in the microwave.

We eventually got the tying, twisting, skewering, buttering, and seasoning all done and put the poor, traumatized bird in the oven. (Which was probably a nice, quiet sanctuary for him after all the turmoil we had put him through.)

And despite our amateurish efforts, the turkey was delicious and yes, I did make a bunch of meals from it.

And even though I was never in the Girl Scouts, I hereby declare that I do hithertofore and henceforth forever more deserve an official Cooking Badge because I, Rebecca C. Smith, have had a (small) part in roasting a turkey. With a goiter.

The end.