Thanks for the (Cheap!) Bird

Well, its almost time to trot out the elastic waist pants and the company lounging pajamas – Thanksgiving time is here again.

I'm thankful for many things at the moment : a slowly (but finally) getting healthy family, a home that's staying warm and toasty without needing to sell blood to pay the gas company, and I'm thankful for the fact that this Thanksgiving the Prime Geek and I only have to trek to ONE family for the yearly gorge (for 5 years we've done double duty – my parents for an early lunch followed by a trek down to his aunt's place for a late lunch, then a 3+ hour drive through a turkey coma back home.) I'm thankful my sister in law is surviving her 3rd pregnancy with only moderate discomfort. I'm thankful for my husband, my parents, my friends. And... I'm thankful for cheap turkeys.


By this point in my greening battles, our meat is 75% locally/humanly/cleanly/they all get together daily to sing Koom Ba Ya while they get their daily cuddles from fresh faced young milkmaids raised and butchered. Inherent snarkiness aside, it does matter to me where my food comes from and how it got there. The one place we fall down, and fall down HARD is turkey. Once a year the sales all hit, and my pocketbook begins to yell a bit louder than my naturally nerdy tendencies. I'd love to buy local turkeys, gently raised – but have you PRICED the suckers lately? Unless they are coming to me wrapped in gold with promises to cure cancer while granting amazing carnal bliss to whosoever devours them, I don't have the ability to drop $60+ on what might be the dimmest animal on the planet. (I'll admit more than a slight concern over the fact I'm eating an animal too stupid and fat to get its own jollies without outside help.)

So – its a mad dash at Thanksgiving to greedily acquire all the turkey we may need for the rest of the year. I have whole turkeys in the freezer, turkeys dismantled into bits then vacuum sealed, broth simmering as it waits to be canned, and a ongoing search for the perfect turkey jerky. At $0.69 a pound... can you blame me for being thankful? Between these birds and the half a cow nestled into my freezer, I'm set for meat for a year. And with grocery prices soaring... I'm pretty darn thankful.

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone. Be safe, and love those you're with.



A small aside before I start packing – no matter your political affiliation, (and everyone who knows me knows there were plenty of things I didn't like about her - from religion to how she insisted on mugging for the camera) if you're sitting down to a turkey dinner this year with family – STOP BELLYACHING ABOUT THE PALIN PRESS CONFERENCE! Sheesh folks, what did you think happened to get those birds on your table? Depressed turkeys ending it all by locking themselves into the garage with a running motor? To every reporter wearing leather shoes, to any pundit fighting over a drumstick – grow up. This is a women who field dresses elk, why be surprised that she doesn't faint at the sight of a dead bird?