T A B L E_ T A L K

Did you have trouble potty training your kids? Share your tips and stories in Table Talk's Mothers area

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R E C E N T L Y

Faraway, so close
By Debra Gwartney
Coming home causes my oldest daughter to withdraw into corners, turn her face and back up toward the door until she can run away again
(11/23/98)

"The Rugrats Movie"
By Andrew Leonard
These babies rule! A 4-year-old and her dad give the new "Rugrats" brand extension a big thumbs-up
(11/20/98)

Second Thoughts: A modest proposal
By Sallie Tisdale
Hurricane Mitch offers U.S. troops the chance not to show force, but to help others -- especially those we've hurt before
(11/19/98)

Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids' Letters to the First Pets
By Hillary Rodham Clinton
What kids want to know about Buddy and Socks
(11/18/98)

Drama Queen Contestants
This won't hurt a bit: This month's Drama Queen candidates tell tales of their most hellish experiences at the gynecologist's office
(11/17/98)

BROWSE THE MOTHERS WHO THINK FEATURE ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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TURKEY FRY | PAGE 1, 2
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It took several years, but one day it occurred to me that there was no reason a person like me could not fry a turkey. The first thing you learn if you ever become deranged enough to fry a turkey is that it requires equipment. A 10-gallon stainless steel pot. A propane gas cooker. Five gallons of peanut oil. Six feet of chain. The planning, I found, was part of the allure: A fried turkey is not something you casually whip up. It is something you plan as carefully -- and anticipate with as much alarm -- as a military campaign.

The night before that first turkey fry, my husband and little daughter went to bed and I found myself alone in the kitchen with two chilly 12-pound birds. I puréed onions, garlic and butter with two large bottles of Tabasco and some Worcestershire sauce. I got the rudiments of this insane recipe from big, fat Paul Prudhomme's family's book on Louisiana cooking, and then I added a little more of everything to be sure my turkeys would be really dramatic. I had ordered a food injector from a shop in Louisiana, and again and again I filled that enormous syringe with sauce and stuck those animals all over. Some of the marinade puffed up under the bird's skin; the rest went deep into the soft, opalescent flesh. It was one of the nastiest, most sensual things I've ever done in a kitchen.

The following afternoon I set up the cooker in our placid rectangle of a back yard. I turned on the propane and lit the cooker. Gas leaked out and flames leapt along the hose. I turned off the gas and reattached the hose. At this point my poor husband suggested we call it off; he was a little afraid for me. He wasn't the one, after all, with something to prove. "Forget it," I said. I stood at that pot and watched the golden oil heat up to 400 degrees. Our bemused friends milled around eating potato chips as I crouched on the lawn and smeared those Cajun spices on the turkey with my bare hands. I threaded the first bird on a chain and we lowered it into the oil. Then I opened a beer.

Thirty-five minutes later the turkey was done, and to my horror, it was a hideous thing. It looked profoundly fried -- shriveled and folded in on itself, dry, mahogany skin stretched tight over every skinny bone. I drained the turkey on grocery bags, we cut the thing up and devoured it. It really was the best turkey I've ever eaten -- juicy, spicy, intense. The skin was crunchy and piquant. It was turkey at its gutsiest and most sublime.

But let me say this: I can't remember the flavor nearly so vividly as I do the ecstasy of accomplishment. I called my old lover, the turkey fryer. I called him and boasted to him of the bird's crackly skin, the meat streaked with spicy sauce, how I'd done this all by myself. I could fry my own damn turkey.
SALON | Nov. 25, 1998

Jennifer Reese is a freelance writer in San Francisco.