run, turkey, run!

last night lee and i had a most dreadful meal. first, i must say that i believe myself to be somewhat of a "kitchen goddess". maybe goddess is taking it too far, but it's the closest i can think of next to God, himself (blasphemist? not sure). we had a meal of a 2-3lb boneless turkey, whole wheat dinner rolls, topped with melted butter, and toasted mushroom pearl couscous. sounds pretty good, right? i sure thought so. but mealtime ended with me saying, "that was one of the worst meals i have had in a long time", to which lee replies with a sort of i'm-gonna-get-her, i'm-gonna-get-her-good smile, "tell that to the homeless". ouch. drive a knife through my heart and call me sally. stutter, stutter, stammer "oh come on. you know what i mean". about ten minutes later AND THEN another hour later, lee says, "yeah that was a pretty bad meal". um, ok. i get it. heard you the first time, buddy. but was my ego shot? nah. i've redeemed myself plenty of times. but let me go on to explain this meal, which is mostly about my newfound disdain for turkey.

i pull the turkey out of the oven and make lee check to make sure it is "done". "done" to me is about 30 degrees abov the USDA "done" recommendation. to my dissatisfaction, it was at 160 degrees, right "where it should be", but it had already been in the oven for about 2.5 hours and it was 6:30pm! dinner needs to be on the table by 6pm, at the latest! "it's fine" i say. lee starts slicing the poor, helpless, little sucker (turkeys are one of the dumbest animals, by the way. if it's raining and they look up, they'll drown. completely factual) so slice slice slice then all of a sudden it falls apart. whaa? lee asks, "why is it falling apart!" "well, it IS a BONELESS turkey so how'd they do that? by mechanically separating the turkey and putting it back together, of course". (ever read the ingredients on a bologna package? mechanically separated turkey. um, what? case in point) my own comment must have been what did it. from that point until dinner was over, i sat watching lee finish the slicing, to the best of his ability, seeing all the "juices" resting, now cooked, to the pan (that i'm certain will be cleaned by yours truly). then watching my girls eat the turkey, gnawing on those nasty rubbery parts because they don't know any better and i'm much too disgusted to discuss that at the dinner table. it's too much. i eat a little and because of my utter abhorrence toward the turkey, nothing else of the meal looks remotely tempting. then to top it off, london decides to ask,

"why do people kill the animals? i can't believe they kill the animals. can't they just go to the grocery store and buy the meat?"

"uh, hon, where do you think they were before they ended up at the store?" the farm. right. "and how did they get to the
store?" killed them, then transported (our words, not hers).

"well, didn't they know the farmer was there?!"

"yes but that's what farmer's do. when they have cattle they know they'll be killed and used for the meat."

"oh. that's gross. poor little animals." mostly, end of discussion. it's just too much, stomach feeling a little more weak than 5 minutes previous. my brother's words begin & continue to play through my mind, anytime someone would say 'chicken nuggets' he would say, "nuggets? chickens don't have nuggets" he's a carnivorous, red-blooded, human being but even he can recognize this. oh dear. i'm done for.

after lee's second reminder of the horrendous meal i had made and the girls were in bed, we decided, yet again, maybe we should just go vegetarian. we have had this thought (and tried it out) many times before but because of the typical american meal always "hot on our heels", that habit was a difficult one to break. so we're going to try it out. again. i'm thinking we'll go with the old yet new "flexitarian" status. because i still love my seafood and sushi. and the occasional tri-tip roast so tenderly prepared & seasoned in restaurants makes me salivate. i just won't be cooking one anytime soon...because they're my friends. plus, the rubbery pieces don't taste so good going down either. we shall see.