NaBloPoMo Day 7: Fakesgiving

Nov. 7: What was your worst Thanksgiving food fail?

I’m in that weird in-between stage in which I am a parent, but both of our families still expect us to come over for Thanksgiving. I’m actually looking forward to the days when I don’t have to go anywhere, but I’m not So, I don’t really cook any food for Thanksgiving, we are usually just asked to bring a bottle of wine or dessert.

I do, however, regularly cook the day after Thanksgiving. Back when the Mister and I were first living together, we acquired on of those free turkeys from Pathmark as a thank you for spending over a certain amount during their promotional time period. So here we were, faced with this giant bird in our freezer and my husband had a brilliant idea. “Why don’t we just cook it on Friday and have a party?” I was immediately on board. We decided to ask everyone to bring their leftovers from the day before, we would supply the turkey and the booze, and with that, Fakesgiving was born.

Our friends, asking the big questions

Fakesgiving has become a tradition that has spanned the last 8 years. Our friends have come to expect this glorious evening of revelry and leftovers. I could go on forever about all of the weird and wonderful things that happen when we get our friends together, but instead here are a few highlights:

The year I was pregnant, I recall everyone getting drunk around me and at some point the bathroom scale found its way into the kitchen. Everyone began chanting, “On the scale, on the scale” and took turns standing on it while arguing over how accurate it was. One friend arrived in the middle of this and the chant got louder and louder, and with no context whatsoever, he happily hopped on the scale to the whoops and cheers of the crowd. They all knew better than to ask the pregnant lady to hop on (pretty smart for a bunch of drunk people).

My other favorite was the first Fakesgiving with our baby, mid-party the Mister decides to run in the bedroom for a wardrobe change and emerged in glorious a blue and black, burnt-velvet, leopard print suit jacket. I have no idea what came over him, but he strutted through the house like he was Zoolander, throwing Blue Steel left and right. Eventually, everyone tried on the coat and posed for pictures (including the baby). The leopard print frenzy hit its height when our friend Ish donned the coat and proceeded to breakdance while we chanted, “In the coat, in the coat”. I guess we really dig chanting now that I think about it.

The notorious coat

Baby in the Coat

Now, back to the question at hand; I have not had any serious cooking fails involved with Fakesgiving. But I do have some knowledge gaps from never having to cook and growing up with my Mom handling all of the food prep. So, the first year that I cooked for Fakesgiving, I just followed the directions on the turkey packaging to the letter and it came out perfect. For the next 5 years, the turkey came out perfect. Until last year, when my husband got a free turkey from Shop Rite and while I was cooking it, the entire thing exploded with water. I have no idea what happen, maybe there were unseen ice crystals inside of it or maybe we got one those turkeys that they inject with saline to make it seem heavier than it actually is. I’ll never know the cause of the turkpacolypse, but not all was lost. We were able to carve up the pieces and lay it out on a serving tray. My husband acted like this was the presentation we had been aiming for from the beginning and the guests were none the wiser. It wasn’t a kitchen disaster and nothing caught on fire, but there is nothing scarier than having a houseful of hungry people when your main dish decides to burst in the oven.

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