For instance, you'd assume that turkey is a formidable thing to prepare because it is so huge in relation to most other roasts, and because so many people in books, the internet and TV make, as Nigella writes, such a song and dance about timings, stuffings (or not stuffings), brining, storing and other turkey folklore, mainly descended from American craziness in the kitchen. You'd expect that turkey, because it is so unfamiliar to most Singaporean kitchens, would be strange and difficult, hard to manage, hard to predict. Yet, when I actually got down to doing it this year, it wasn't quite as problematic as I (perhaps) wanted it to be- it really is essentially roasting a giant chicken. It roasts reliably and, if brined, turns out fabulously moist. No two words about it- it is not a bitch to prepare. Many props to the recipes that informed me along the way, Jamie Oliver's basic roast turkey from 'Cooking With Jamie' and Nigella Lawson's turkey from 'How to Eat', both of which, I think, are excellent recipes, though brining the bird before roasting seems to me an important step which neither mention; plenty of information on the Net, no point waxing culinary here.
So if you ask me if I will attempt turkey again, I'm really quite sure I will. The turkey I prepared for Juling's wonderful MJCAB Christmas gathering was moist and cooked through, flavourful and tender from the brining and really quite unlike the delivered turkeys we've had for family Christmas. I loved the stuffing, and many people at the table did so too. So yes, against all expectations, turkey is really quite worth the effort involved in cooking it yourself.
Apart from the turkey, preparing for tonight's dinner also taught me to count on the inveterate late-coming of people to dinner parties. Having nearly ripped my hair out in frustration to make sure the turkey came out at exactly 5.10pm, in time to be served hot for a 6.00pm++ dinner, I was most shocked to find that Rickson, who drove me, and I, were the first to arrive at Juling's house and we had to sit around for about an hour and a half before mostly everyone arrived and we could start eating. I don't mean to gripe, but in order to make a 2pm meeting in school (I was late, regardless), I had to take a cab after shoving the turkey into the oven at 1.30, and cabbed home to make it in time to fuss around the completed roast. That's a total of almost $20 on taxis.
If anything, this has taught me to simply let go and stop micro-managing cooking, things tend to take care of themselves and more so if you have a level-head atop your shoulders; panic, as my mum loves to intone, only leads to the unnecessary spending of money and you screw things up that needn't have screwed up. Patience and a loving tolerance of people's propensity to be tardy make cooking for others an infinitely less screwy activity. It is a hard lesson to learn, and one that has taken way too many freaky-Joel dinner parties to internalise.
But fussing aside, I really enjoyed tonight's gathering, fraught as it was, initially, with panic and irritation surrounding hot turkey (it turns out hot turkey can be kept reasonably warm in a recently used oven if covered in foil); and I'm happy to have contributed something which I personally thought was good and sincerely made to that table, and basically to have been with everyone tonight. I count it one of my happiest blessings to be surrounded with such reliably fun and charitable friends who value as much as I do the times we've spent together. You realise as you age and get bogged down by things like school and the future, that anchoring yourself in a group of old friends is perhaps one of the best ways to stay healthy in spirit; throw in lots of food and beer and you have, I think, a good game.
Anyway, I now have leftover turkey and stuffing EARLY this year, and shall make quick work of the good stuff even before the major eats on the 24th. Yes, happy days.
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