We started the morning today at the River Rock Grill where, as you can see, they specialise in Family 'Dinning'. Spelling errors aside, they did a mean breakfast and my pancakes were as light and fluffy as a cloud (far better than the ones Darrell attempted when he was here - sorry Daz but they were dire). I chatted to Auntie Debbie, who is alright in my book* because she's a big fan of Location, Location, Location and anyone who loves Phil and Kirsty must be sound.
A walk of the dogs later, we headed over to...now I'm not sure whose farm it was - some of Craig's relatives or family friends? - to go and look at their lynxes. Yes. They live in cages in the (huge) garden, and though one of them is pretty wild, the other was actually hand reared along with the house cats so is quite tame. Then we drove over to Auntie Debbie & Uncle Dave's for lunch, only to be confronted by their 2 dogs, several cats, 3 horses, a llama and several hundred bunny rabbits running free in the yard, not to mention the 17 members of extended family. I admit to being a little overwhelmed by it all.Lunch was fantastic. We had deep-fried turkey (oh yes) which was phenomenal. Why don't we always cook turkey this way? Very tender and delicious, with the most amazing crispy skin which - oh but my family will be sooo jealous here - no one else seemed that bothered about eating. Megan even went as far as saying it was 'disgusting'.
And so I had the run of the crispy skin and the oh so gorgeous crispy bits around the wings and...oh it was heaven. In addition to the turkey there was a huge ham, potatoes and gravy, peas, a million and one different types of salad and - and this is where it got a bit too strange for me - strawberries in jelly and rice pudding. Which was to go, apparently, with the turkey. Hmmm. And they thought I was odd for eating all the crispy turkey bits. Pumpkin pie followed, naturally, which was just as I imagined it (not sure if I've ever had it before) and absolutely superb.I had done my research on Canadian Thanksgiving and discovered that it was first introduced by the explorer Martin Frobisher, who sat down in 1578 to give thanks for not dying in the harsh wilderness that was (and still is in many parts) Canada, while he was actually trying to find a way to get to China (thanks Wikipedia!) So, thinking it would lend me a certain amount of kudos amongst my kind hosts, I raised my punch for a toast to the said Mr Frobisher, only to be greeted by a sea of blank stares. No one, it seems, had heard of him, or knew exactly why they were sitting down to this delicious meal.
Ah well, it's the turkey that counts.
*'Who's Alright by Me: how to judge a book by its cover' by Mia Davies neé Fothergill
3 comments:
How did they do it? I can imagine deep-frying *bits* of turkey but then you wouldn't get the wingy bits so from your description I am imagining an entire turkey, all deepfried. But no deep-frier I have ever seen would accommodate an entire turkey. Please explain further!
Yes, yes, yes, exactly what I wanted to know! And also, can you demonstrate when you come home and invite us for a meal - or cook it at my house? As we don't eat turkey at Christmas, perhaps we could start a new family tradition, of 'thanksgiving day'. That is, giving thanks for a delicious deep fried turkey meal, and the ensuing bun fight for all the crispy skin, and then we could each prepare a speech about the history of said thanksgiving day and pick the one we like best, or seems most plausible (or causes most amusement), a bit like 'call my bluff' ?
If you look at the pictures on my facebook account you will see the said turkey fryer - and one of the turkey in situ! It was basically a huge steel kettle filled with 'canola' (rapeseed) oil and the turkey was placed upright on a big metal thing that looked like a kitchen roll holder and lowered into it....
Love the idea Jen, the only problem is it looked bloody lethal to me, don't fancy doing it in your back garden!
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