Fiasco the Turkey, also known as Fred

Last Thursday was the Social Studies Thanksgiving dinner and I offered to cook the turkey, along with other things so that I would have something to eat and not make others try to cook dairy-free.  This was my first time actually making the turkey, including shopping for it.  I purchased most of the supplies on Sunday during my regular shopping trip, but figured that I could buy the turkey on Thursday after class, which would still give me the 4-5 hours needed to cook it.  I did know that it takes that long to cook.  So I headed to Martins on Thursday after class ended at 11 and picked up a 15 pound turkey to feed the 10-12 people coming over that night.  Little did I know that I bought a frozen turkey, who's instructions say that it takes 2-3 days to defrost in the fridge**, or 5-9 hours in cold water.  So once I got home, I figured that if I defrosted it in warm running water, in the bathtub so that it was sitting in water too, it would defrost faster than the 5 hours, which I did not have, knowing that the turkey needed to be in the oven at 3:30.  Fred* then took a shower from 12pm-3:30pm, attempting to defrost, and probably raising our water bill next month.  At 3:30, Fred was still nicely frozen.  I called my mom to ask about the possibilities of defrosting a 15 pound turkey in the microwave, or just cooking him still frozen, and was informed that neither of those were possibilities.  My options were to turn back time and buy the turkey on Sunday or head back to Martins to buy a non-frozen turkey breast.  And if there were no non-frozen turkey breasts, then consider having ham.  (I do know how to cook a good spiral ham.) Fred then got placed in the little fridge space that I could create and I headed to Martins for the second time that day.  Once there, I did not trust myself to choose a non-frozen turkey breast because I originally thought I had bought a non-frozen one, so I asked the butcher who chuckled when I explained the situation, and proceeded to hand me what he said was a non-frozen turkey breast.  I got it home and un-wrapped it, only to find that parts of it looked frozen!  But once I had washed it, I discovered that the frozen bits were just the juices that had frozen and the bird was not frozen.  Into the pan and oven the turkey breast went at 4:30pm, to emerge at 8pm.

The cooked turkey breast

I had also spent the day making pumpkin bread, southern style green beans (need some work on those) applesauce and stuffing.  I love homemade applesauce and believe that it should be eaten in mass quantities.  The pumpkin bread was the biggest hit, and was alas from a box.  

Attempt at southern style green beans

Homemade apple sauce

Our table with lots of food :o)

You may be wondering what happened to Fred.  Well, he spent the night in our fridge and on Friday I called a local place by the name of Our Community Place that serves 3 meals a day to anyone in the community who needs it, and asked if they would like a 15 pound thawed turkey.  They said yes and Fred was delivered to OCP that morning to be cooked for their dinner that night.  Annalisa returned home from the library Friday afternoon and inquired as to Fred's whereabouts, and was dismayed when she found out he had left us.  I responded that if she wanted to see Fred again, she could go have dinner at OCP.

*Annalisa named Fred when she arrived home to find a very large frozen turkey sitting in the fridge.  I decided that Fred should be the anglicized version of Fiasco, because that's what he was.

**Note: when telling the story to my parents they kindly informed me that they have never had a turkey defrost in the fridge in the 2-3 days suggested on the package.  It always takes 4-5 days.  Good to know for the future!

Dairy free and smiling

Previously I was avoiding large amounts of dairy, but would still eat things with butter and whey in them, mainly processed foods and I was still feeling somewhat crummy.  I cut out all dairy (including butter) about 2 months ago and have to admit that I am feeling so much better!  I still get some occasional stomach/GI issues, but I think that's related to me eating too fast.  I also started taking calcium on a regular basis, Vitamin D and flinestones, and that combination plus not eating dairy has really helped.  I have more energy than I used to and am not so grumpy from feeling like crap.  The one issue with being completely dairy-free is that (well, besides having to inform others that I can't eat anything you make...) is that I don't get any of the good bacteria found in dairy (lactobacillus) which helps regulate your digestive system and prevents yeast infections in females.  So I have to take pro-biotics every couple days to make sure that I have enough to prevent yeast infections, which I used to get about once a month.

So if you go out to eat with me, or I eat at your house, I'm sorry if my dietary restrictions cause problems, but I think you'll prefer my company if I'm dairy-free.

Kurdistan and Contacts

Our practicum class switched so I moved from Broadway HS to the Career Development Academy (CDA) back at JMU where we work with adult English Language Learners to help their English and teach them some American History.  When I taught, my topic was the California Gold Rush, so we saw how to pan gold, talked a little about natural resources, related to natural resources from their home countries, talked about the Mexican American war and how California went from being Mexican territory to American territory (stupid Texas), and then looked at pictures of miners.  I had each group get a picture and talk in their group about the picture with some guiding questions and then each group presented.  That gives them speaking practice in their group, writing practice on their question sheet and speaking practice in front of the whole group.  It worked out a lot better than I thought it would.  Wednesday MaryAlyse taught about immigrants who came to California because of the Gold Rush and I got to work with a gentleman that I will call K.  K told me that he is from Kurdistan, which is in Northern Iraq, but he is not Iraqi.  He is Kurdish, and was very adamant about that. When we were talking about culture and how immigrants bring their home cultures with them to their new country, K wanted to talk about the things he does here in the US, not things that he did at home and still does here.  He is one of the lower English skilled students in the class so I was working with him one-on-one rather than in a group like the rest of the students, which helped, but it was still hard to get things across.  However, I did learn that he had worked for the US Government in Iraq which is why he and his family had to leave and come to the US.  His wife and kids live in Fairfax and he lives here for the job.  One interesting thing that I learned is that he speaks Kurdish and Arabic, but only uses Arabic for translations purposes.  He won't start conversations in Arabic, but will respond to if spoken in Arabic.  That's fascinating to me.  I'd love to learn more about his background and what his kids are like.

Today I went back to the eye doctor for another follow up appointment about contacts.  I've been having trouble wearing them because they aren't that comfortable and I've noticed when wearing them that my vision isn't perfect like it is with glasses, my eyes get tired faster, are really dry and when trying to move from near vision to far vision, it takes a lot longer.  I love this eye doc because he does a great job of taking the time to explain to me what exactly is going on to cause those problems.  I learned that because of my astigmatism, the contacts shift 4-5º on axis when I blink and that sometimes blinking can make it better but sometimes it makes my vision worse.  My prescription is about 165º but because contacts only come in ranges of 10º it's hard to find a lens that will fit perfectly.  So that's challenge #1.  Challenge #2 is that all of the meds that I'm on for asthma, allergies and anxiety affect the ability of my eye muscles to change focus, which means that it takes longer to move from near distance to far distance and back.  So my meds are making my eyes act like a 45 year old's eyes would. That explains why a previous eye doc put me in progressives.  It's not because my eyes are actually that old, it's because my meds are making my eyes act that old.  We're going to try a little bit stronger lens next time to see if that helps at all, but I got reading glasses at Target after the appointment to see things close up and they are actually helping.  I can shift from the computer screen with readers to looking far away taking the readers off much faster than I could before.  Plus I was told to use drops for the dryness (challenge #3: caused by meds, allergies and the weather) which are helping too.  I've been wearing contacts for 3 hours today which is a record! Time to take them out so that my eyes don't get pissed off, but I'm going to have to make sure to wear them a bit each day to see if I can increase the amount of time.  This may actually work. ;o)  But I'm still considering Lasik.