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For an unusual Thanksgiving By Randy A. Salas
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
(MCT) You probably have everything you need to know about turkey for Thanksgiving by now - new recipes, cooking tips, serving ideas. So I'll skip all of the usual turkey-related resources on the Web and suggest some unexpected ones.
1-hour Thanksgiving dinner
Could you really cook an entire Thanksgiving dinner for six to eight people in just an hour? You can with the minute-by-minute steps at WikiBooks (en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:One-Hour_Thanksgiving_Dinner). The idea is not a joke. It's a real home-cooked meal - complete with turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, veggies, cranberry sauce, biscuits and pumpkin pie - aimed at college students and first-time cooks. Many of the dishes are of the heat-and-serve or instant variety, but that's to be expected. Total cost: about $25. The crucial part of the meal is a fully cooked frozen turkey breast that must be thawed for about a day in the fridge before heating, which takes the full hour, so finish this column quickly and get to the grocery store if you want to give it a go.
Tofurkey
Ah, tofurkey. How we love to mock your congealed faux meatiness. It's not just meat eaters poking fun at the tofu-based product that's served as a vegetarian substitute for turkey, either. Among the classic tofurkey TV moments at Turtle Island Food's brand-name Tofurky Web site (www.tofurky.com/funstuff/news.htm) is a clip of Christina Applegate on "The Conan O'Brien Show" in which the noted vegetarian actress calls the dish "a ball of spices and rubber." She adds, though, "You just feed the people a lot of wine, and they won't even know the difference." Turtle Island also has classic tofurkey clips from TV shows such as "The O.C.," "Just Shoot Me" and "Felicity." Make your own tofurkey with a recipe at VegWeb (www.vegweb.com/recipes/subs/turkey2.shtml).
Clueless cooking
Did you hear about the guy who wanted to know how to carve a roasted turkey with a chainsaw? How about the woman who used bleach to sanitize the bird before cooking? Or the dog owner who got her Chihuahua stuck inside her turkey? These are just a few of the many real calls handled by people who run turkey-cooking hot lines, as detailed by the urban-legend Web site Snopes (www.snopes.com/holidays/thanksgiving/turkey.asp). Oh, the little dog? It had become stuck after diving into the cavity of the bird, and no shaking or pulling would dislodge it. The pooch was finally freed after a hot-line adviser suggested that the woman carefully cut the turkey to widen the opening of the cavity.
Turkey bowling
Animal-rights activists have decried the practice of turkey bowling, in which a frozen bird is thrown across the ground to knock over bowling pins or other objects. You can see video-clip examples at YouTube, including firefighters killing time in the station parking lot (www.startribune.com/a1963) and employees using the wide-open floor of a Wal-Mart distribution center (www.startribune.com/a1964). You can avoid any controversy by playing the online Flash game "Turkey Bowling" from Makai Media (aki.wallasvaara.com/games/bowling). Just pick up the virtual frozen bird with your cursor and give it a fling. You get 10 frames, just like real bowling. The pins are even shaped like little Pilgrims as a form of turkey revenge.
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Randy A. Salas is a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Do you have a favorite Web site or a question about how to find something on the Internet? Send a note by clicking here.
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