killing four meals with one bird (five counting leftovers) i'm going to have to give it up for my favorite founding father here, the national bird really should be the turkey. the national symbol for our thanksgiving meal, traditional or not, the same bird we offer up as an insult isn't only a fierce protector of its territory but a cornucopia of leftover meals!

nothing new to many of you, i'm sure, but i'm just so damn happy with the way the bird turned out this year on so many fronts. first it went through a 24 hour brining process, which i've done before but not with such wonderful results. unstuffed and unbasted, it came out of the oven 3 hours after it first went in moist and juicy as you please.

we ate our fill on thanksgiving and again served ourselves up plates of leftovers the next day. today we took a break from all things thanksgiving while i turned the carcass into (1) a shepherd's pie for tomorrow night, (2) an adobo turkey chili with beans in the slow cooker for the day after tomorrow and (3) turkey stock for a soup-to-be-named-later.

i know in the past i've made grand plans for leftovers, all with the best of intentions, only to get lazy and pick at the bird until i realized there wasn't enough left for anything but the occasional sandwich. which, in the past, was fine. i have no problem with turkey, cranberry and stuffing sandwiches for a week but it always left me feeling like i'd let the turkey down somehow, as if i hadn't really honored this noblest of native foul.

come december 1st i'm not going to want to hear the word turkey for at least a month. i want to roast something else for solstice.  ¶ Saturday, November 25, 2006