Update on the Thanksgiving Turkey

This year we bought a turkey to cook for Thanksgiving. Our sixteen-year-old daughter wanted a traditional meal, and my husband, who is vegetarian, agreed to cook the turkey. I had had an opportunity earlier to get on a list for an organic, free-range turkey from a local farm, but I passed up that opportunity because I thought we would opt for a less traditional feast--which just goes to show you that young people can love tradition as much as an old fart. So my husband bought a small "pre-thawed" turkey at a large chain grocery store. In fact, my husband did most of the cooking; he loves to cook. I did my small share in making the sweet potato pie and lettuce salad. So this was our menu:

• Lentil and Squash Soup
• Baked turkey with chunks of turnips added to the turkey dish/drippings the last 45 minutes of baking
• Cornmeal dressing (with tofu in the mix--Tom's concoction!)
• Red Lettuce Salad: the lettuce, radishes (including wonderful watermelon radishes), green shallots--from Riverview Farms; the carrots, cranraisins and sunflower seeds not.
• Warm, home-baked, sesame-seed topped yeast bread
• Red wine (A to Z Oregon Pinot Noir, 2007 ("Aristocratic Wines at Democratic Prices"), iced water, choice of soda
• Pecan and Brown-Sugar topped Sweet Potato Pie (in a homemade oil pastry--I no longer use shortening)

Tom's tofu-cornbread dressing was a little dry, and Tom thought the spices were "out of balance," but it tasted pretty good with some of those turkey drippings dribbled over it. The lentil and squash soup was scrumptious, the bread and sweet potato pie even more so. But the turkey--well, it lacked flavor. Eating some turkey leftovers this afternoon, I tried to describe just how that white meat tasted: sort of like wet, shredded paper, I said. Our daughter was even more disappointed. Next year, she said, the lentil and squash soup should be the main dish.

And so, I'm with Matthew Yglesias (here and here) on the Thanksgiving Turkey.