Happy Thanksgiving Y'all

Before I go any further (ha) I would like to say that I have no experience making a Thanksgiving turkey (or any turkey for that matter) from scratch (because you can't XD). Actually, I only recall ever eating turkey at Thanksgiving once, maybe twice in my life. Turkey is kind of a foreign concept in my household, much less the specifics of cooking it. (We generally stick to sticky rice and dumplings at Thanksgiving- much less of a hassle) Since this is my first time, and I was running short on time, I enlisted the help of family friend who wishes to remain anonymous. For the purpose of this we'll call him Bill. At his urging, I ran to the nearest IGA at 9:30 at night to buy a turkey in order to brine it overnight.

After being submerged in a bath of salt, bay leaves, pepper, water and chicken soup, It's time to coat it in a mixture of butter and herbs (Salt,Pepper, Oregano, Basil, Sage, Rosemary, Thyme, Paprika).

and then we put it into the oven...

after an hour, it looked like this^

We then added a lemon for moisture, and covered it with aluminum foil to bake for another 3 hours. 

It turned out like this:

well...the turkey sort of got torn in half when we tried to move it onto this pan, and for aesthetic purposes, this mess looked better than that mess :o I think. 

Oh, we can't forget this:

Bill made a remarkably tasty gravy with the rest of the turkey giblets. 

I should probably now mention that it was a group dinner hosted at my house with various friends of my mom over for dinner and poker. Some of my friends also came and we had a night of food and games, One of my friend had told me that she wanted to become a vegetarian and has been following the diet for 2 days and so she adamantly refused my offer of turkey and gravy. But as the night progressed and intense games of league were played, she got hungry, Again, I told her to eat just a little bit of turkey and again she would refuse. But after a particularly good game (we had a mind blowing comeback), she got hungry again. And wouldn't you know it, the second time she went into the kitchen, she returned with a huge chunk of turkey and proceeded to swallow it in 3 bites. She then admitted that it was the best turkey she ever had (I was very pleased) and went to grab more, all the while berating herself for eating meat (I was very amused). If turning a vegetarian (granted it's only been for 2 days), back into a meat eater is not an accomplishment, then I don't know what is. 

Of course after they left (approximate time of 2:30 am), the piles of dirty, oily dishes were enough for 2 dish washer loads. And to think this was all for English bonus marks... 

The reaction of my friends after I told them why this was all necessary:

The reaction my mom gave me:

Why in the world do you need bonus marks for English? Are you failing? 

.-.

All in all, this was a cool experience and I would absolutely do it again next year. I would never have thought about making a turkey if it wasn't for English so thank you Mrs. Kwan! 

and Happy Thanksgiving to all!