BRINE!!!!!


It's that time of the year again.  The Heeb Holidays.  Also known as Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, the highest of Jewish holidays and ones in which more food is consumed than all the other Jewish holidays in the year combined.  Yom Kippur is supposed to be 24 hours of fasting but, when all is said and done, you consume more food after that first, fast-breaking morsel than you have in the previous week.

Anyway - it was Rosh Hashana this week and because we are the most sensible of people, we decided to invite South Jersey to our house to eat the New Year's meal.  OK, so it wasn't all of South Jersey but it was nearly more than the Jewish population of Utah and certainly more people than we have ever hosted for a single dinner.  42 people.  That's TWO, twenty-one person dinner parties....THREE, fourteen person dinner parties....you get the picture.  Its a ton of people.

Everyone was responsible for some aspect of the dinner.  The plan was set and everyone had their specific task.  We had the turkey.  I love eating turkey but I've never made it.  Deb was sick and I inherited the task of taking this thing from the store shelf to the oven.

I picked up this 18 pound bohemoth at Wegmans and settled down at around 10pm to brine the bird.  For those who don't know what brining is, its the process of salting the turkey, basically marinating it, overnight which makes the turkey more edible or something, I have no clue.  It's just something I knew I had to do and so I set out to do it.

I cut the turkey out of its package and placed it on a big cutting board - one with a shallow groove cut into the border for catching juices that may ooze from the turkey during the process.  I laid this bird on the cutting board and turned my back to it so I could pull a few videos up on the JordPad, which was set up on the counter queued with some brining how-to videos.

I watched about a minute or two of these completely unhelpful videos and tried to wonder how I was going to get mounds of kosher salt rubbed inside this turkey when I heard a dripping sound from within the kitchen.  It wasn't just a plain drip-drip-drip of a leaky faucet.  It was a steady dripping - and the first thought through my mind was that this turkey hopped up from the cutting board and just started taking a piss on my kitchen floor.

I spun around to see the Niagra Falls of turkey puss flowing freely from the island in my kitchen, down over the cabinet doors and splashing onto the floor in the pinkish-watery pool.  Just as I began to gag, my cat came running from the other room, obviously in the smell of the moment, and nearly planted his entire face in the salmonella party on the floor before I handed him a forearm shiver and sent him flying backwards and running up the stairs.  I turned back to the bird and watched it continue to hemorrhage and overflow the shallow groove of the board.  How could an 18 pound carcass spit this much guk?

Gotta say - I never knew that raw foul smelled quite like....raw foul.  I mopped the kitchen up and cleansed the place the best I could, trying not to hurl and keeping the cat away the entire time.  When I was satisfied that the kitchen was sanitized I finally got down to the business at hand.

I scooped up mounds of kosher salt and began massaging the bird.  I loaded the back and legs and I went at this bird with reckless abandon.  Next, I reached inside and pulled out the guts, neck and all.  This bird was becoming my bitch now.  I punched that thing so full of salt - it's blood pressure tripled, even in death.  Two cups or so of SALT - in this vulture!!!

Done and completely exhausted, I submerged the turkey in a huge put of salt water, covered the bitch up and shoved it in the fridge for 12 hours.

The next day it cooked for four hours or so and was enjoyed by 42 family members.  Delish.  I even gave the cat a small bite

L'Shana Tova!!