My wife and I disagree on very few things. The exceptions being the size of Christmas trees and the size of turkeys. I've always been in favor of big Christmas trees and large turkeys. Glenda likes tiny trees and twelve pound or under turkeys.
When we shopping earlier in the week for groceries, Kroger had lots of fresh thirteen pound and under turkeys. We had a turkey breast at home so after a little "discussion," we decided to pass on the turkeys. This afternoon, it dawned on us that no one had gotten the frozen solid as a rock turkey breast out of the freezer. A quick decision was made to find a fresh turkey so we could enjoy another Thanksgiving dinner.
I went off to deliver a few last minute personal Christmas greetings. It wasn't long before I got a somewhat panicked cell phone call from the ladies who had gone to the grocery store. It turns out there were no fresh turkeys left under twenty pounds. There's nothing like the chef getting backed into a corner. I had told her that a fresh turkey breast would be fine, but I guess she thought i really wanted some of that delicious dark meat that you get on a whole turkey.
Apparently all of the "fresh" turkeys seemed a little frozen around the edges. The butcher was even consulted, and assurances were given that the turkeys just had a little frozen crust. They came home with a turkey that weighed in at 20.5 pounds.
Well it turned out the "fresh" turkey was a little more frozen than indicated by the butcher. We ended up having dinner at 9pm tonight. It didn't matter. The turkey, Brussels sprouts, cranberry sauce, stuffing and gravy were delicious. Since the turkey was so big, we won't need much more cooking this weekend.
It nice to win one once in a while even if it is just a turkey skirmish.
Fresh turkeys quite often end up frozen on their way to the stores. It's impossible to regulate the temperature in the reefers such that the same temperature is present from front to back and top to bottom. So many turkeys freeze on route. I've been on fresh turkey deliveries with my father in-law; the truck was loaded and emptied on the same day - so we didn't have that problem. But when we'd see pallets of competitor's "fresh" turkeys we'd always poke them to test for freshness and many were frozen hard. The meat managers would almost always leave the pallets out of the refrigerators until they thawed out. The good news is that I've never met anyone who could taste the difference between a quality fresh or frozen turkey :)
Sean
Posted by: Sean Pecor | December 26, 2005 at 06:34 AM