This week, I find myself slowly descending into the cold panic that always comes with planning and preparing an Important Meal for more than just Brian and me.

All my recipes are neatly clipped together and hanging on the refrigerator. I made the brine for the turkey on Sunday evening. I also put together the cranberry-orange compote (with Grand Marnier, mmmm) and it's still sitting in the blender, also chilling in the fridge.

Tonight: I am going to assemble the ingredients for the green bean and sweet potato casseroles, and refrigerate them, uncooked. I am also going to bake one of the two desserts for the big day: Paula Deen's Gooey Pumpkin Butter Cake. I did a test run last week, since I'd never made it before, and it came out pretty good.

Tomorrow morning, I am going to the farm in Spring City where my fresh turkey is awaiting me. Tomorrow night, I will bake the apple pie.

Still, even though I know I am somewhat on top of the game, I get butterflies in my stomach just thinking about Thursday. That is because I have two less-than-perfect Thanksgivings under my belt.

I hosted Thanksgiving in the first year of our marriage. We'd only been married two months, and I'd never cooked a turkey before in my life. My mother told me not to buy a whole turkey, since there would only be five of us at dinner, but to instead get a turkey breast. Sounded good to me. So I wandered the aisles of my local Giant supermarket, peering in the freezer wells, in search of this elusive cut of bird. Finally, I came across a frozen Butterball, about the size and shape of a regulation football, whose label read: Boneless Breast of Turkey. This must be it, I thought. I can do this!

So on the big day, I stuck the thing in my roasting pan and baked it per the label instructions. My parents and grandmother arrived just as I was pulling it out of the oven. My mother came into the kitchen and asked if I needed any help.

"Oh, no," I assured her, "I've got it all under control."

Then I took the lid off the roasting pan. She glanced at my roast and said, ever so tactfully, "What the hell is that thing?"

I blinked. "I thought you told me to get a turkey breast instead of the whole bird," I reminded her.

She said, "Lori...that's not what I was talking about...that's a rolled turkey with white meat and dark meat. You got the wrong thing!"

Oh, the horror. And she was right! None of my family eats dark meat, and I was mortified when I saw that my little football roast yielded about five slices of white meat. I didn't even have a taste of any turkey that day, because I wanted to make sure that everyone else had some for themselves.

The following year, I decided to buy a whole, frozen bird. How can you mess that up, I thought.

I thought wrong, my friends. You see, there's a little bag of goodies inside that big cavity...that I completely bypassed and DID NOT REMOVE prior to roasting the turkey. Like some kind of wacked-out version of Groundhog Day, my mother swanned into the kitchen again just as I pulled the roaster from the oven. She asked, as customary, "Is there anything I can do to help you here?"

This time, I replied, "Yeah...let the turkey rest for a while, then carve it up."

Half an hour later, she picked up the carving knife and went for broke. She didn't get very far into it, though, when she suddenly cried out, "LORI! You didn't take the giblets out of the cavity!" I watched as her hand snaked into the innards of the bird, and my jaw dropped as she yanked out the bag, still frozen solid. Well, duh. Using an instant-read thermometer, we learned that the roast wasn't even cooked through. So back into the oven it went, for another HOUR. Sheesh. By the time I put it out on the table, everyone had already finished all of the side dishes.

So this year, I've decided that I am most definitely due for a good turkey. Third time's the charm, isn't that how the saying goes?

Feel free to share any or all of your Thanksgiving disasters here...if not just to make me feel better!

Labels: family, food, funny stuff, holidays, marriage, stress