Did You Know (turkey edition)

Did you know that:

• We decided not to do all the work of the full turkey dinner just for the two of us at Thanksgiving this year (we'll be doing it at Christmas, when my brother is here).
• It did seem like a good idea to pick up a small turkey now, though, while it's on sale, and make stock to use for the gravy at Christmas.
• If one goes to the grocery store two days before Thanksgiving, they only have a few turkeys left in stock, and they are not at all small. Leaving the choice of a 25-pound turkey for a really ridiculously good deal, or maybe a smaller one that would cost three times as much.
• If you get the 25-pounder, chances are good that your largest roasting pan will not be big enough for that. Get a foil one from the dollar store (or a kindly neighbor).
• A 25-pound frozen turkey will take (they say) 5 to 6 days to defrost (safely, in the fridge--where it takes up an entire shelf).

• No worries, though: You can cook a frozen turkey! Who knew. (Not I.) 
• It just takes at least 50% more time.
• Which means that the house will start smelling of turkey about an hour after it goes in the oven, and will smell better and better for the next, oh, 8 hours.
• Though after you have bent over the hot oven for a while, ladling the excess liquid out of the pan, you will find the smell a bit less appealing.
• At this point, a fla-vor-ice pop is going to help your mood immensely. At least, it helped mine!
• If you burned your arm a little against the inside of the stove while ladling, then putting A&D ointment on it will soothe it.
• But you will be sent back in time on the scent memory of changing diapers, even if it is a decade or more since you last changed a diaper.
• Back to the turkey: some hours later, you will have this beauty:

And lots of liquid, and dinner tonight, more meals after, and the carcass to make the stock. 

Whew. Happy Thanksgiving!