'Tis the Season ...

This morning I looked at my Google calendar and saw that for the next two weeks I have no appointments with any of my minders.  That must mean I am getting better.  I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that all my minders are going away for Christmas.

I’m not going anywhere this Christmas. I’m not yet up to that, but I am going to have traditional “turkey” and Christmas pudding.  That is despite the fact that I think the guff about traditional turkey is a lot of old gobblers.  The tradition I grew up with was watching Ernie, my maternal grandfather, chop the heads off two chooks which he had brought in from the chook run in the backyard.  He used to do the chopping underneath the high blocked house at 6 Thomas Street, Maryborough.  Ernie held each chook by the legs so that their head lay on the chopping block which was normally used for making wooden chips to start the fire in the wood cooking stove upstairs.  Down came the axe and he would immediately release the bird with blood spurting from its carotid and vertebral arteries. Sometimes their bodies would run upright for a metre or two before falling over. Then came a dousing in boiling water taken from the soot blackened copper which was used for washing clothes each Monday.  The boiling water loosened the feathers making it easier to pluck them.  All the gorey stuff was done on Christmas Eve, and visions of headless chooks were merely a distant memory by the time I was served up a chicken drum stick for Christmas dinner the next day.

Turkey is a bird native to North America.  When did it become traditional here?  Trad or not – I’ve got a kilo of frozen turkey breast in my freezer.  Now that is a bit of a white elephant, that chest freezer.  I bought it when I set my sights on the “ageing bachelor life”.  I could see myself cooking up a storm and then freezing separate packages of yummy pre-cooked dinners for one.  Mum had a chest freezer which she used to fill with stews and casseroles, so that Dad wouldn’t starve if she were to go away somewhere.  I was following that pattern.  Well, I thought I was following that pattern until I discovered that the freezer built into the bottom of my fridge is sufficient for my purposes. After all, around here, I’m both the cook and the starvee, if the cook goes on strike.  So I learned that my freezing capability is excess to requirements.  The one kilo of Steggles Frozen Turkey Breast bought over a year ago at a bargain price, will be coming out of the freezer, and then I’ll be able to sell it in a lawn sale in the New Year.  [No. Silly. I’m not planning to sell the turkey breast in a lawn sale.]

I’ve got lots of things to sell in my lawn sale. A Leitz microscope, a no-brand 20 MegaHertz oscilloscope, a high end Epson 4990 scanner,  multiple small gas bottles for camping, a safari tent, fishing rods and reels, assorted fishing accoutrements, a box trailer, books, tapes, and CDs.  I could sell a few of the 24 radios I have counted as being in my possession but I need each and every one of those.  Oh, make that 27.  There are kits for a one valve AM receiver, a crystal set, and an FM transmitter all yet to be built.

That should give me something to do on Boxing Day.

Comments

[Tjilp's Daughter]

Dad! You know I've been eyeing off your books for years! Please don't sell anything that I might be interested in. Also, my little pink left handed fishing rod I would like to keep. I would also like to keep the green safari tent! I have many fond memories of that tent. As I do the microscope! How am I going to show my children what a louse looks like up close when they come home from school with head lice huh?

[Tjilpi]

Ahh, Julia. The art of fiction writing is to make everything seem real. Don't worry. I'm sure Tjilpi has everything under control.

[Tjilp's Daughter]

Great to hear Daddy, great to hear :)

[Kerry]

Yes the chook story is how I remember Xmas as well .. No one had Turkey .. In Bali we will all be eating what we want ..

[Slartibartfast]

There is something satisfying about dining on an animal that faced death at your own hands. Sadly most folk believe meat is born ready to cook from a big plastic wrapping machine ...

[kim]

yay, Boxing Day! we don't do that. we just lie around and watch more football. eat more pie.

good luck w the Turkey. I don't touch the stuff. besides childhood farm days, I once worked in a chicken packing plant.
Thursday was turkey day, when my job was to grab the turkeys by a leg, detaching them from the line where they were suspended, speeding along, and tossing them into a huge(whatever yer thinkin', bigger than that) tank of cold water. my thumb still hurts.
sorry. good luck w the turkey. living in the desert, you might be able to sell it in a yard sale. remind me to send pics of my two year old bananas. I dunno meat may be a bit more challenge.
maybe. in Vegas, there will prolly be seafood in buffet layout. Tradition. ish.

[Maree]

I think I might just be jealous of you, as I cook the turkey again for somewhere between 20 - 30 people. Boy..., always great, but not much down time.

[Emma]

Does meat last that long in the freezer? I thought 6 months was the time limit?!

[Tjilpi]

Emma, it does last longer in the freezer here in Alice Springs. That is because the climate is different down here from that in Darwin! [Please phone on Boxing Day to see if my theory is correct.]

[kim]

now that I have a family to visit, no Christmas buffet, prolly traditional pig instead. (I have a tradition of eating pig almost any opportunity presented, ever.)
and maybe I will mention Boxing Day. Maybe.

[kim]

we had a traditional Christmas breakfast of bacon, followed by bacon. later we had some leftover bacon.
having the time of my life.