Hey this is Jose

Last night in what has become a little bit of a tradition, I had 17 of my closest friends over for a little pre-thanksgiving turkey feast. For those that may not remember, the tradition started last year when I decided to cook a turkey for my family over the Thanksgiving holiday. As I had never cooked a turkey before, I decided that I needed to practice on my friends in preparation for the real Thanksgiving meal in order to determine if I could cook a turkey and to avoid killing my parents if things went horribly awry. Last year, the turkey turned out great even after a grease fire in the oven that filled the apartment at the 398 with an absurd amount of smoke forcing me to air out the entire place for over an hour.

This year, I went even bigger with a total of 17 guests and a 19 pound bird. Plus, I decided to brine the bastard adding a full day of preparation to my little endeavor. This part of the process was highlighted by my buddy, Shaun, passing out around 2 AM on a aerobed in the middle of my kitchen while me and my girlfriend placed the giant beast into the brine only inches from his head. (As well, there may or may not have been an appearance by Lucy, the cockroach, who may or may not have skampered across the counter coming uncomfortably close to the bird and the brine.)

Thankfully, once again everything turned out great with my friends really stepping up with an unbelievable assortment of foods to compliment the turkey including meat stuffing, stringbean casserole, mashed potatoes, breads, and pumpkin pie just to name a few. Throw in some amazing cranberry sugar poppy thingies and libations highlighted by Red Roosters and the evening was a giant success. (Even if I did end up calling my upstairs neighbor, Jose, when his name is actually Juan. Hopefully, the turkey was enough to make up for this minor faux pas. If not, I blame it all on the tall boys combined with sitting in a turkey fume infested apartment for over 12 hours on Sunday.)

Now, I need to start preparing for next year where I plan to deep fry a turkey and will try not to invent any new ethnic sounding names for my upstairs neighbor.