Christmas Day on Third Street

So, I'm not much of a cook. A few months ago I changed my day job, and started working as a coordinator for a cooking school. Offering programs to the general public for both adults and children; I got the job because of my background in marketing and adult education (not my abilities in the kitchen), I hire Chefs to do the cooking parts :). A few weeks into the new position my mother asked when I was going to have them over for a fancy meal, she figured I'd learn something by being in the environment. Not so much, as it turns out!

Today is Christmas Day, after much discussion (and kicking and screaming) my husband and I were nominated to host dinner for his side of the family. Even the though of it brought me anxiety. I had one of the Chefs at work go through the whole process with me from start to finish, I took a lot of notes and went out and got a fancy fandangle meat thermometer, real butter and rosemary. I was set.

So, this morning came. We figured we'd have to have the turkey in by 8am, straight away this morning we prepped the bird, inserted my new meat thermometer and watched as the internal temperature went up and our home filled with the smell of Christmas Dinner. The time the Chef had given me was up and the thermometer was still not reading the correct temperature, I tried moving it around being sure not to hit bone and realized in the meatiest part of the turkey the internal temp was a great deal higher then we were aiming for. We hauled'em out and let'em sit for the 30 minutes the Chef recommended.

I was busy getting the veggies ready and the gravy made as my husband carved the turkey. It was a beaut! After a few minutes and a knife change he realized something was wrong, all of the meat he was cutting was dark meat.... it appeared as though the turkey had no white meat. Upon further investigation, we discovered that we had cooked the turkey a little longer than necessary, we had put the thermometer in the wrong spot. I guess I didn't take good enough notes after all, we had cooked the turkey upside-down.

Happy Holidays!