Time Waster Wednesday - 50 Ways To Cook Your Turkey

(Note from the editor - to properly appreciate the title of this post, you must have this song in your brain, like I do right now. Also, that is one bitchin' mustache, and is that Korean?)

When I was young, I was convinced it was the same all over.

At approximately 5AM Thanksgiving morning, mothers all over the country would haul themselves out of bed and start cooking the enormous bird - 5AM because they knew they'd need to thaw it (and swear at it for still being frozen) for at least 2 more hours.

By 7AM at the latest, the creature would be trussed and roasting at a balmy 325, to be faithfully basted every hour on the hour, as the kids of the house alternately watched the Macy's parade and tried to find the tights and/or ties necessary to dress up for dinner (which they fought all urges to call lunch since it was so EARLY) later.

Or maybe you were lucky enough to be going to someone *else's* house for the day - well then you were still up and watching the parade, trying to decide if a dress was really a must or if your mother was just trying to torture you.

Around noon or so, relatives would start to show up or you would show up somewhere else, bearing rolls and pies and other goodies, and by 2PM everything would be laid out and looking gorgeous.

Everyone would gather together, say a prayer or just dig in, and by 2:32 it would all be over.

As an adult, I finally got to host Thanksgiving in my very own house a couple of years ago. This involved, most importantly, cooking my first turkey.

How to do it though? A quick Google search will elicit no less than 5,000 ways to cook your turkey the PERFECT WAY. Brined, oiled, deep-fried, baked, grilled, breast-up, breast down (not to mention the dreaded Turducken)... there are literally endless ways to cook and eat the yearly avian offering.

Of course there are vegetarians out there saying "there's really only one way to make Tofurkey", and while I respect their decisions to not eat meat and, in particular, turkey, it's Thanksgiving and I am *not* a vegetarian. At all.

I do, however, buy the free-range happy turkeys if at all possible. I do my part.

So what's the perfect way to cook turkey, really?

YOUR way. That's the perfect way. Do you love how your turkey comes out? Then you're doing it right.

Here's to a wonderful day of eating and hanging out with your family and friends - even one other person is enough to make the day. Go find one!

Me, I'll be eating someone else's food, hoping for a little bit of leftover turkey as a door prize, so I can have my very favorite Thanksgiving tradition...

The Midnight Turkey Sandwich. Oh yeah.

Happy Thanksgiving! No Thursday or Friday posts this week, as I'll be computerless. I'll miss you too.

Oh, and just to stick with the theme, here's a completely unrelated to Thanksgiving time waster... unless you draw a turkey, in which case it's totally perfect. Enjoy!