Not for the Faint of Heart...

Those of you have followed my blog, know that we bought two live turkeys for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.  It seems that at that time, Gaylord was enjoying them as semi-pets and did not want to kill them.  Well, that has now changed.  We gave the hen to a needy family for Christmas dinner, and we decided to have turkey for dinner ourselves.  So you know what that means....goodbye bird.

I am 52 years old, and this is the first time that I have ever seen a turkey prepared for cooking from beginning to end.  You know that I am trying to document this journey with photos of EVERYTHING, so this experience is no exception.  If you are squeamish or have an aversion to killing your own food, stop reading now.  That is my disclaimer for the following photos.

(1) Our security guards killed, soaked in hot water, and plucked the feathers from the turkey.

 

 

(2) Once the bird was clean on the outside, Watson went to work on cleaning out the inside.

 

This may look like a bucket full of disposable parts to you, but it actually holds the parts that our workers think are very delicious: the intestines, feet, neck, organs...everything except the stomach...nothing went to waste.

 

(3) After Gaylord ensured that the inside was clean enough, he trussed the bird, and it was ready to cook.

We looked so forward to eating our own turkey.  I even finished out the meal with sweet potato casserole, green beans, and rolls.  I would like to say that it was delicious....but that would not be exactly accurate.  Though the taste was good, the meat was as tough as leather....seems Tom Turkey was not so young!

AWA - Africa wins again!