Turkey dinner...

Wednesday, December 30, 2015
My Adirondack friend and the person most important to getting me back into the woods, Henry Billingsley, was coming over to deep fry a turkey for a family get together.  He was interested in talking to Jack and knew how we both loved turkey.  He travels extensively though, and is often difficult to reach and so the night before, when I had still not reached him, was in a quandary about the coming day.  At 11 p.m., the phone rang.

“I’ll have the turkey and fryer there by 4 p.m.  Karen’s bringing some cranberry sauce and dressing and I’ll have a nice bottle of wine,” he told me.

I was in charge of the rest of the food.

I’d never been in charge of the rest of the food when it was food I knew nothing about making.  I did know something about calling people and going dumb early so that they would be willing to help me out.  I started with John and Teri.

“Would you like me to bring a salad?” she asked.

Duh…and dessert, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn something to drink.

“Salad would be great,” I replied.

I’d resolved the dessert thing when I looked around the kitchen and seen all the leftover stuff on plates and in bags.  I could easily combine them into a platter that looked like I’d spent the afternoon with Betty Crocker.

I found a recipe for sweet potatoes hanging on the refrigerator and figured mashed potatoes were about the same – only white.  I was sure I could pour frozen corn into a pan and heat it up on the stove so basically, I was set.

We ended up with eleven people and I had Karen coaching me in the kitchen for the final preparations.  I’d made the sweet potatoes and had them baking while boiling the potatoes for mashing.  Once they were soft, I strained them into the sink and prepared for the mashing.  Karen looked at me like I had a third eye in my forehead.

“Did you just dump the potato water down the drain?” she asked.

“I didn’t mean to,” I said, trying to recover, “but the pan had all these little holes in it and the water seems to have escaped.”

Apparently, you can use that water in the mashing of the potatoes, but too late now.  I added milk and lots of butter and they were pretty good.  Even my kids were raving about the sweet potatoes later, so I did okay.

I’d done a Survival Workout earlier in the day and ate sparingly during dinner.  Rapidly approaching the end of a tumultuous year, I was hoping to get there on a positive physical note.  An ailing shoulder and a heel that hurt with every step would deny me arriving there healthy, but I could at least be fit.  Healthy is coming, though.

Survival Workout: 60 minutes
Training Heart Rate: 100-150 bpm.
Calories Burned:  600