3:33 p.m. - 2004-11-20
A Thanksgiving for the books

Thanksgiving Story

I will be checking in and reading diaries and may post...but if I don't...be assured that I am ok and just busy busy busy!!!!

If I don't get a chance to say it later...I'll say it now...Have a Wonderful Holiday all my buddies...Love Paula

On a Thanksgiving in 2002, we had "one for the memory book".

It seemed like the perfect plan. My Sister and Brother In Law, Linda and Don Trinite had their house pretty much packed up for a move in 2 weeks. My home was in the middle of renovation, 1/4 painted and strewn with paint cans, tools,& supplies. Daughter, Michelle was just hopping to have a reason to decorate her new condo and show it off to our Aunt Marilyn. We decided that in order to share the burden, Thanksgiving would be at Michelle's place and she would do the decorating and cleaning, Don and Linda would provide us with a unique treat of a deep fried turkey, Aunt Marilyn would make the wonderful mashed potatoes we love and I would do the side dishes that I love to cook, and also be the hostess.

Some where between the plan and the executing of the plan was a comedy of errors that we will forever remember.

For me it all began and ended with the sweet potatoes. I was originally not going to make sweet potatoes but my co worker and I started talking about our favorite recipes and sweet potatoes came up. I saw a couple of good recipes on the Food Channel and in the newspapers, and somewhere along the line, sweet potatos started sounding like a good idea. I selected a recipe that sounded good with brown sugar and crushed pineapple. My co worker suggested that I use canned sweet potatoes and I stuck my nose in the air and brushed that off with my usual, "I only use fresh ingredients" remark.

My husbands only remarks were "As far as I'm concerned, you can forget the sweet potatos."

To which I replied "Well..other people like them".

In the end I should have heeded his words.

There were two things that I did not expect:

1..that sweet potatoes are as hard as the hope diamond and;

2..that the recipe made enough for Coxies Army.

All was going smoothly and I started slicing the orange colored rocks and somewhere between sweet potato one and sweet potato three I sliced through the tip of my left thumb and almost cut it clean off. It was three hours before we were to serve dinner and there I was sitting at the table soaking one paper towel after another with my own blood.

As I sat at the table bleeding to death, the phone rang and our caller I.D said "Trinite". I told Mike to get it and tell Linda I couldn't come to the phone right at that minute. He spoke to her and then relayed to me that the Turkey fryer had blown up and at what temperature should she cook the 22 pound turkey.

After Linda was told of my situation she told Mike she would look it up in her cook book and hung up. In the meantime, I got the bleeding under control...well sort of..and wrapped my thumb in a paper towel fastened by 5 giant bandaids and looked up the Turkey information in the cook book. Ol Betty Crocker said that a 22 pound Turkey would cook at 325 degrees for 6 hours, and we only had three....It was now time to panic.

I called Linda back and said "Did it really blow up or what happened and how far along was the Turkey?"

Linda said "The Turkey's still raw and I don't know what happened, but there is a giant ball of fire in our back yard."

I said "Still?"

"Right now as we speak", she affirmed.

Linda assured me that she was on her way out to get a package of Reynolds Cooking Bags and that it would cut the cooking time in half. We decided to postpone dinner for a couple of hours.

Aunt Marilyn had already left her place, and was expecting to arrive just in time to have dinner. She didn't know it yet but she was in for a long wait. In the meantime, I called Michelle and told her what happened. There she was sitting in her beautifully decorated home not knowing when anyone was coming. It took me another hour to get those sweet potatos cut with one and a half hands...(You hold the sweet potato down with your wrist, hard, and cut with the right hand, careful not to slit your wrist.)

At about 1PM I called Linda. Don answered and said that the bird went in about noon and they would be there by 3:30 with a cooked Turkey....however it is good that Reynolds puts TWO bags in those boxes, because the first one burst after they put the Turkey in it.

I said to Don, "you have to shake flour in the bag first to keep that from happening."

He said, "We did, and there is flour all over the kitchen".

Not being there....I could only conjur up pictures of my sister having a massive anxiety attack, and the Trinite household in a mass of chaos. Don said that Linda and Aunt Marilyn went for a ride to see the new house and that he was in charge of the Turkey. So far so good...everything was now back under control.

My only concern now, was trying to finish my end of the dinner missing most of the tip of my left thumb, which was now throbbing underneath the mass of bandaids that had to be changed every 15 minutes.

Somehow I managed my end and prepared all the food for transport. I told Mike to put the four 9 x 13 foil pans on the back seat and not to worry because there was nothing very liquidy in them...I forgot that the pineapple was added "with juice".

We pulled up to the door of the condo and Michelle and I ran the pans up as Mike got them out of the car and handed them to us. When I came back after delivering my first pan, I found Mike swearing a blue streak....something about never putting food in the back seat again and some sugary substance having poured out on the back seat of our good car. There was a pan of sweet potatos sitting on the ground, looking totally innocent. I guess that while he was lifting the sweet potatos out of the back seat, he slipped on ice which caused some of the pineapple juice mixed with butter and brown sugar to spill on the seat. On his way down, he dropped the potatoes and although he landed on his back, the sweet potatos landed flat on the bottom of the pan, totally unblemished and unharmed. The foil on the top was not even disturbed. I took them and ran them inside and up to the oven to cook their 45 minutes as the recipe promised, while Mike scrubbed the back seat of our car clean of sweet potato juice.

Linda, the boys and Aunt Marilynn arrived about 2:45 and Don arrived with a beautifully cooked Turkey, still in the bag at 3:15 and we would have eaten by then too if it had not been for........You guessed it...the sweet potatos. Remember that I told you the recipe made enough for Coxies Army? Well it was two pans full and after 1 and 1/2 hours they were still...well...crispy and no where near done. In desperation, I scooped some into a big serving bowl and it still took 20 minutes on high in a microwave to take the crisp out. In that time, I was able to warm the other side dishes through and get everything on the table. We finally ate at 4:00PM, only 2 hours late from our original plan.

When you consider a missing thumb tip and flaming fire balls in a back yard as our problems, that's not too bad. Everything was great. The Turkey was one of the juciest and best I have ever had and I accepted many accolades for my side dishes, as Michelle accepted compliments for her beautiful, Martha Stewart, like table decor.

Ah...but what about the sweet potatos?...Well....As my husband said..."As far as I'm concerned you can forget the sweet potatos"....that seems to be what other people think about sweet potatos as well.

When I went to take the left overs back into the kitchen I noticed that most of the sweet potatos were still in the bowl. There were about 4 small spoonfuls missing. Mine, Michelle's, her boyfriend Brian (who tries everything I cook because he is a good egg) and little Joseph's who stated politely that after trying them, he didn't like them.

I looked at the two 9 x 13 deep dish pans full of sweet potatos and wondered what I was going to do with them....I didn't like them that much either and Michelle said she didn't want them because after Thanksgiving, she couldn't eat anything sugary. I could not fathom throwing out so much food, let alone food that I had paid for with my flesh. I wondered what to do with them, when my wise daughter said: "Mom, just throw them away....it's in the past...it's over with." You know what? I did just that.

We all ended up in great moods having had a great Thanksgiving and it is a credit to our family that we are able to laugh when things get out of hand. On top of that we have a story to tell and to remember and the fire ball is a nice send off for house at 1674 Wicke Ave, in Des Plaines, which will no longer be in our family after 32 years.

My parents finished raising their family in that house and Linda and Don started raising their family in that house, so it was hard to say good by to.

Nephew, Sam figured that the thermometer on the Turkey fryer was malfunctioning and that the oil heated up too hot and started on fire. Don had put it out at one point with the lid of the deep fryer, then after a while lifted the lid and WOOMPH...it started up again. Good thing a neighbor came to the rescue with a Weber grill lid.

The day after Thanksgiving, God granted us one more warmish day and Linda and Don were able to pack up their garage items and Mike and I cleaned our garage and put away the many concrete statues I have. The yard was clean and ready to receive Christmas cha-cha's.

Our day ended nicely with Elk Grove Village's annual Tree lighting ceremony. There were hundreds of people there, all in wonderful moods and Christmas music blaring from loud speakers above. The Village cronies all made their speeches and then we all counted down from 10 to 1 and they flicked on all the lights in the village. It was very impressive. They then gave us (or I should say the taxpayers gave us) a wonderful and extremely close up fire works display that went on for 15 minutes. After that the Elk Grove High School Town Criers sang for us. It was festive and wonderful and a great way to end Thanksgiving and start the Christmas holiday. By the way, my thumb tip reattached itself and healed nicely, leaving me with a normally shaped thumb.

I Hope anybody reading this has a wonderful Holiday....and may a Turkey Fryer never explode in your yard.

P. I. Yarnsmith

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