Care For Your Elder

Anna, Joan and Mary

As you read below my turkey for Thanksgiving was fowled-up.  I am going to give away a free copy of my cookbook to the person who submits the “best” fowled-up story.  Contest begins today and ends Dec 31, 2009.  Just submit your bad dinner story in the comments section (see below) and if you have the “worst” story about your Thanksgiving or Holiday dinner you will be my winner. Here is my blog for today:

I hope everyone had a great Turkey Day.  We had a great day.  My sister, husband, and son went to Atlanta, GA to visit our other sister, Joan.  We decided to cook our turkey the way I described in my previous blog (click here to read the blog).  I want to give you an update on how that turned out for us.  Not too well.  My sister’s oven is one of those ovens that I discussed about the heat leaking out of the oven via the stove top burners, but I didn’t know that at the time. 

Joan is a great pre-cooker.  She starts everything very early so that you just have to “cook” the items on Thanksgiving.  On Wednesday, she had most of the stuff sliced, diced and prepared so all we had to do was the actual cooking part, which does make things run smoother on the actual cooking day.

Back to my story, well, Anna, Joan and I sat in the kitchen looking at the bird.  I had spiced and buttered the inside of the turkey skin and Joan had put some aromatic veggies inside the cavity (onion, celery, and apples) and we started talking about the actual cooking.  See, Joan had some guests coming over at 4:30pm but they didn’t want to eat, they just wanted to visit.  Our plan WAS to eat about 4 and be ready for them and they could join us for dessert.  We decided to do the 500 degree turkey for 1 hour then leave (with the oven turned off – great safety measure) and take a trip up to Stone Mountain.  Again our plan was to return home to a wonderfully cooked brown beautiful turkey, and then we could slide in the stuffing and sweet potatoes in the oven as the turkey was resting.

Well, the plan didn’t go as anticipated.  We got home after going on the gondola to the top of the mountain.  It was a beautiful day but cold.  The winds were kicking at about 20 mph and the temperature was in the high 40’s low 50’s.  The wind chill on top of the mountain was too cold for us Texans and we didn’t stay up there long. Anyway, when we got home the stove was cold and the turkey was about ½ cooked.  Needless to say, I found out that her oven vented from around the burners.  I had no clue.  We had to turn the oven back on to finish up the turkey.  Oh, and my sisters wouldn’t believe me when I said it needed to cook for a few more hours, they decided to remove it after an hour (I was napping as all good folks should do on holidays – they got up earlier).  Joan started to cut the turkey to serve it (all the other dishes were done) and the turkey was still pink.  We had to throw in cut pieces back in the oven to finish cooking.  And Dang it All, I forgot to take any photos of the thrice cooked turkey……..

It did turn out that the food was excellent, but it took cooking the turkey 3 times before it was done and we finally ate about 6 pm after the guests left and the food was cooked.

The morals of my story are one, this is a good way to cook a turkey IF your oven is a built in one that doesn’t vent as easily as a free standing one.  Two, listen to your sister, she may know what she is talking about (well sometimes I do).  Three, take a nap if at all possible on holidays!

I hope you had a great turkey day and your elder’s too.  Up on my next blog is how to make a live Christmas tree a bit less flammable.

Tags: Elder care, elderly health care, how long to cook a turkey, how to cook a turkey, recipe, turkey cooking directions, turkey cooking tips