It isn’t easy when you realize that you are an adult and if you want to carry on some of your favorite traditions, it’s up to you, especially if you are a forgetful cook like I am! But there’s nothing that will make me preserve through even the hardest cooking challenges like the pressure of preserving my heritage!
And so, my Christmas “break” has been filled with cooking and experimenting and failing. I thought you might like my stories.
First of all, I must have given myself away in the grocery store because almost every woman who I passed gave me advice about how to cook a turkey breast and how to make dressing and what the best type of gravy was. I like to think it was because their daughters who were my age weren’t able to make it home for Christmas and so they needed to help someone else out. I am going to choose to not think about the fact that it was probably more about the fact that I looked completely helpless and that my cart looked a bit haphazard!
Although, I quite successfully cooked a full turkey in Germany, I desperately failed at cooking a turkey in America (turns out the grocery store women were right after all!). Maybe it just all seemed to easy or maybe it was the choice to buy a turkey breast rather than a full turkey. Let’s just say, I got confused and cooked the turkey upside down. What happens when you cook a turkey upside down you might ask?
- The juices actually don’t flow out of the turkey and create the good base for gravy and to add to the dressing.
- The turkey sticks to the pan and the turkey doesn’t cook thoroughly through!
- I have to admit that I am still not sure which way is up on a turkey breast and think I will just stick to buying the whole turkey even if it means infinite leftovers because at least then you have a red button that pops to let you know it’s cooked all the way thorugh!
I did manage to make my grandmother’s homemade dressing from scratch, but maybe that task was a little easier since there really is no recipe to follow!
And today to start out the New Year, what’s better than collards, cornbread, black-eyed peas and pork tenderloin?
At least, they’re off to a good start!
