ETERNAL LEFTOVERS
It’s been a month since our Thanksgiving festivities ended and I have reached a major milestone; I’m half-way through the turkey leftovers. I have nobody to blame but myself; having a turkey dinner, at home, with all the trimmings, was mostly my idea. All right, it was completely my idea. Let’s put it this way; it was Eunice’s gift to me. After 34 OR 35 years of wedded bliss (that’s still under debate), Eunice finally, as allergic as she is to fowl, agreed to roast a turkey for me—and the family. Technically, you would think it would make me a majority of one. Technically. Had I known when I proposed-- No point going there. For one thing, I didn’t propose. Eunice’s girlfriend told us, I think you two ought to get married. So we did. Clearly, there were no allergy disclosures in the vows. Believe me; I’ve pored over them.
In my family life in New Jersey, during the war, my father raised turkeys. They were pretty much taken for granted. Jump forty years forward to my married life, I didn’t really get suspicious. We were a working couple, TV dinners were handy and we ate out a lot. I think it was our third pastrami Christmas when things seemed to come into focus. She confessed. It was a medical issue. What to do? It seemed too late for an annulment, we already had two middle-aged sons to support (well, not to support, they had their own families to deal with and for all I knew, they were probably allergic to turkey too. All my immediate family was back on the East Coast so I was essentially outnumbered here.
But fortunately, out of the goodness of her heart (and a very good poultry marriage counselor), Eunice relented and agreed to serve me the traditional turkey feast. It helped that a family friend contributed the turkey she had been given at work. Weighing in excess of 13 pounds, it was a magnificent bird. But with only a few of us cutting into it, when we stepped away from the table, the turkey might have healed if it had survived the roasting. Everyone declined offers to take some home. To clarify her own position, Eunice decided she would go vegan. I Googled for a turkey carcass recipe and after assembling a truckload of vegetables in a huge vat, I made a gallon and a half of the best turkey carcass soup I ever tasted, which I finally finished. Now I have enough frozen turkey meat to make sandwiches until spring. So if you’re in town, give me a call and we’ll have lunch together.
