Turkey Tragedies

Everyone has a favorite dry turkey story, but breast meat like sawdust won’t separate you from the top-tier turkey terrorists. From the fairly common rookie mistake of leaving the neck bone and giblets in a cooking bird to the rare and potentially burn-inducing deep-fried turkey melt-down, the bird is the word when it comes to major Thanksgiving game-changers.

Just ask these poor, misguided souls!

#1 – The Stubbornest TurkeyZilla There Ever Was

Says Bill McD:

Several years ago, we jumped into growing our own food by deciding to raise and then butcher the turkey. My wife came home from the feed store with a turkey chick sometime in June, declaring that the feed store said this was the time to start a bird to eat the last week in November. By October, this giant bird was running around the yard and then by November, it resembled a small elephant. The turkey dressed out at some 45 plus pounds and wouldn’t even fit into the oven on the bottom rack, as the breast bone was hitting the top of the door frame. We whacked it with a bread board to break down the breast. We invited anybody and everybody to dinner and sent everyone home with LOTS of turkey. (more…)

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Like moths to a flame, we humans are some fire lovin’ folk. Something about that flickering, heat-giving, forest-burning, mysterious glow that brings out the inner caveman in us all. For example, we had a little get together at the casa last Friday night and at one point, I just happened to notice that we had the gas fireplace going in the living room, the barbeque grilling on the front deck, food heating on the kitchen range top and some of our less reliable guests stoking the outdoor fire pit with dubious combustibles.

Suddenly, I felt the presence of Al Gore’s large, levitating head glowering down at me through a cloud of C02, and was filled with a foreboding sense of green guilt because at that moment, my carbon footprint must have been the size of Crusty the Clown’s shoe. But as the monster in Frankenstein said so eloquently, “Fire. Good!” Wouldn’t it be great if someone invented a stove that merged fireplace, woodstove, barbeque and cook stove into one, efficient, attractive unit?

Wait for it… (more…)

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Even celebrities slow down for a home-cooked meal once in a while. And lucky for us, they’re cool enough to show off their state-of-the-art cook spaces. Today, we’ll take a super intimate look at the kitchens of big-name stars – and sample some sweet design tips along the way.

Christina Aguilera’s Funkadelic Cook Space

Pop singer and four-time Grammy winner Christina Aguilera shares this funkadelic kitchen with her music-producing husband, Jordan Bratman, and their son, Max. Since the home’s former owners were the Osbournes, this is certainly not the first round of atypical décor the house has seen.

Christina’s kitchen is an eclectic melting pot of stylistic influence. Medieval, oriental and satirist antediluvian furnishings don’t stand a chance with the modernization of graffiti artwork, kaleidoscopic rugs and metallic red and purple kitchen counter seats all vying for the spotlight. Convention shows up somewhere in there by way of stainless appliances. Her creative vision? “I wanted every space to have its own personality.” Mission accomplished! (more…)

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