Hold the Turkey!
Ah yes! The festive season of over indulgence is upon us once again. Say good-bye to your diet and workout routines and bring on the carbohydrate loaded Turkey Dinners, the home baked goodies and all of the vices that give us those hallucinations of sugared plums dancing in our heads.
On average the North American continent consumes over 280 million turkeys annually. Over Christmas we will consume over 30 million of these birds totalling in excess of 450 million pounds of turkey. No wonder we say gobble-gobble. Did you know that only tom turkeys gobble as the ladies just make a clicking noise?
In my career as a chef I have personally prepared almost 50 000 individual turkey dinners. By the time Thanksgiving passes I become revolted by the thought of eating another bite of turkey, and by the time Christmas arrives I begin to develop an irritating twitch around my left eye. The smell of turkey bones being simmered down into mud coloured stock to create an entire week’s worth of turkey noodle-a la king-lasagne-soup is bordering on postal-worker retaliation a la chef.
For some reason the movie Silence of the Lambs keeps flashing in my mind while writing this article. I need to silence out the sounds of the millions of turkeys in my mind.
Silence of the Turkeys. Yes that’s it! I need to silence the turkeys. Writing can be so therapeutic.
Realistically though I should be more thankful for turkey dinners, seeing as Benjamin Franklin proposed to have the turkey as the United States official bird instead of the Bald Eagle. Benjamin felt that the Bald Eagle had a “bad moral character” and did not reflect the values of Americans.
Besides “Turkey Dinner” sounds better to say than “Bald Eagle Dinner” and I think I’d rather wake up in cold sweats with the sounds of gobbling turkeys ringing in my head instead of screaming eagles. Somehow “Silence of the Bald Eagles” doesn’t fly with me, then again neither can a domesticated turkey. Only wild turkeys can fly but for short distances
The first sit down meal on the moon was at a table for two. Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Aldrin dined on roast turkey with all the trimmings out of handy little foil pouches. The creators of Sesame Street’s Big Bird costume used dyed turkey feathers. A turkey yields about 3 500 feathers
Oh yeah I almost forgot to mention that Turkey bacon is just plain wrong to me but then again I’d rather cook up a pound of turkey bacon for breakfast than a pound of Bald Eagle bacon.
For this years festive dinner I recommend a leg of lamb cooked on the bbq. It’s quick and easy and it’s not so big that you have to thaw it out in the bathtub.
Herb Roasted Leg of Lamb
1 Leg of silenced lamb bone-in
2 tbsp. Rosemary
2tbsp. Thyme
1 tsp. Ground Pepper
1 tbsp. minced garlic
Mix all of the seasonings together and then rub them all over the lamb leg. Pre-heat your bbq to about 400f or medium on your temperature dials. Roast the lamb on the bbq without any direct heat from underneath so shut down half of your bbq. This will allow you to roast your lamb leg in about 40-50 minutes without charring it.
Tags: Catering, Chef Brian Henry, Kawarthas, Lakefield, Ontario, Peterborough, Private chef
