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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Happy Thanksgiving

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  November 22nd, 2012 at 04:32 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Not even on Thanksgiving morning do I get to sleep in. I have to get my Big Green Egg up to temperature, smear butter all over a turkey that I’ve had brining all night, shove a few fruits, vegetables, and herbs up its rear end, and get to smoking over some hickory and apple wood.

Regular readers of the site know my wife is an excellent cook. By sundown today we will have gone through 21 pounds of butter, 9 pounds of bacon, and 6 dozen eggs. All of that will go into 4 cakes, 5 pies, and 20 pounds of turkey. This time of year is so busy for me, we house the 15 members of my family and friends. In exchange for them driving over from Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee, we’ll do all the cooking. Yes, if you are doing the math, we have more pounds of butter than we have people. Welcome to the South!

I’d like to take just a minute, before I tackle the turkey, to tell you all how much I value and am thankful for each of you. So many of you tell me you pray regularly for me and this endeavor we call RedState. I thank you.

I am particularly thankful for my friends who tirelessly provide some of the best insight and commentary from the conservative grassroots here on the front page of RedState. The front page contributors are invaluable and deserve special thanks.

I also am very thankful to the fine folks and Eagle Publishing, Inc., our parent company. And I must absolutely thank my wife, but for whom I would not be able to do any of this.

We also could not do what we do without all of you. Thank you very much for your friendship, readership, support, and prayers. Have a blessed and wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.

We’ll return to normal posting schedules on Monday.

God bless you.

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  • realfactchecker

    I’m up with you.

    I made the mistake of smoking a turkey several years ago that had enjoyed an overnight soak in a bourbon, maple syrup, and brown sugar bath and now I have to do it every year.

    The hardest part: shopping for the ingredients and a turkey that hasn’t already had the “8% solution” injected into it when I buy it. Even Butterball birds come “pre-bathed.”

    The easiest part: using my electric temperature-controlled Traeger Smoker with its automatic wood pellet delivery system, meat “thermomitter” with wireless temperature receiver and alarm that works from inside the house. (no, I do not work for Traeger – I’m just a big fan)

    The second-best part: enjoying the extra bourbon that was not required for the brine while I was preparing it.

    The best part: watching the amazed faces of family and friends when they taste it…make that devour it.

  • http://www.erickerickson.org Erick Erickson

    I have to order mine at a local froo-froo grocery store to avoid that. What’s your brine recipe? That sounds awesome. I use one off the Pioneer Woman’s website. No bourbon in it I’m afraid.

  • denoff51

    Happy Thanksgiving to all the Red State folks who run such a great site. The election may be lost, but we all still have our family, our friends and most importantly, God. Enjoy and spend the day with no cares and no worries. God Bless EVERYONE!!!

  • timcooper62

    Erick …The turkey will be marvelous. Just don’t do what I did one year. My electric starter broke on Thanksgiving day and I did not have a spare. So, I got the brilliant idea of starting the big green egg with newspaper. BIG mistake. After the fire was going and the coals were ready, I placed Mr. Turkey on the egg for what I thought was going to be a lovely smoke. The turkey turned sooty black and reeked of newsprint. The dog wouldn’t even eat it. We had to run to the local Kroger, which was open fortunately, and buy another turkey.

  • http://www.erickerickson.org Erick Erickson

    Ugh. I’ll definitely remember that. I love my electric starter. I’m thinking of getting one of those fan/thermometer combos that keeps the temperature steady without me having to check.

    This year, the turkey is so big (I have a large BGE) that I’m having trouble keeping the temperature steady for long periods of time and am constantly making adjustments.

  • westcoastpatriette

    I love the traditional Thanksgiving meal. Everything about it.

    Have a great day, Erick, and tell your wife and kids we said thank you for sharing you with us.

  • fightnright

    “All of that will go into 4 cakes, 5 pies, and 20 pounds of turkey. ”

    I love a holiday where little is expected of me except to cook, wash up, eat and ~~nap~~. Except in this house, those pounds and pounds of butter, brown sugar, yams, cream, gravy and dressing seem to go right into our spare tires =O

    We have five grandkids and a raft of in-laws (and outlaws) to feed, so I do have to get out of my cozy bed way early and face that :ugh: huge, fat, cold, naked pink turkey waiting in our kitchen….

    ::narrows eyes:: …and no, dear RedStaters – I do NOT mean Mr. ‘right………….

    A blessed Thanksgiving weekend, everyone.

  • evilbloggerlady

    I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends and family. And if you are for some reason alone today, I especially wish you a blessing.

    So here are a couple of Turkeys!

  • sbm1

    When did everyone get so into “brining”? Brining removes moisture and replaces it with salt…it’s pickling….fine if you need to store meat, but for freshly bought and soon prepared.
    I find cutting some slices into the leg, and at the joints to allow them to cook a bit quicker gets me a turkey that is not dry in the breast when the legs and wings fall from the bone. Also buying a fresh turkey rather than a frozen butterball seems to be serving me well.
    And when serving so many did you ever think of 2 seperate turkeys….one done as a whole, and one cooked in pieces. It does have a bit of “loaves and fishes” effect of people wondering how you got so much meat out of such a reasonably sized bird…..but it is easier to get them done evenly that way. Anything over 20 pounds is about impossible to deal with properly.

  • CFPeterson

    Happy Thanksgiving and thank you Erick for all that you do. Let God be praised!

  • timcooper62

    Well, the weather’s nice. It calls for a lawn chair and a cooler with some beer on ice :)

  • trutexan

    Ah, another non-believer. If you think brining removes the moisture, then you’ve never had a properly brined bird. I do competition BBQ’s in Texas and there’s not a single one of my fellow competitors who don’t brine their birds. Brining expands the cells in the muscle (meat) tissue and absorbes the moisture, not depleats it. Think of your fat ankles when you take in too much salt. And when the cells expand, what they absorb is all the flavors in which they are submerged. Yes, salt is part of it, but a brine should be balanced by sugar and other flavorings. When I make BBQ “eatin’ chicken” for guests at the house, they never fail to exclaim that it’s the absolute best chicken they’ve ever had because the meat is incredibly juicy & moist and the flavor goes throughout the meat to the bone.
    I’ve considered getting hubby the green egg. Our buds have one and they love it. Christmas is coming? I dunno. Hubby says it’s not a real BBQ unless it has a license plate, wheels, and can be towed behind the dually. We fry our turkeys and I absolutely love a turkey that way.
    Erik, as you lamented I thought about how incredibly blessed you are. I know you lament with love to all so it was sweet to hear you “complain”. Happy Thanksgiving and I’m thankful for all you do.

  • commonsenseobserver

    I want to thank God that trolls like a certain srobin are always rooted out efficiently.

  • rj1913

    Okay Erick. You have a minimum $1K cooker without mentioning accessories to cook you bird on. Got it. We understand. Good for you. You’re so cool. Enjoy your bird.

  • rj1913

    Well, perhaps that was a bit snarky. I’ve cooked on the Weber charcoal kettle grill for years. I use it year round and cook whole turkeys, deer hams, Boston Butts, multiple whole chickens at a time, and much more. I have for 40 years and the kids have given me plenty grills over the years.

    So to cook a whole turkey, I’d place a pan of water in the middle of the kettle and pile my charcoal on both side. Once the coals have burned down, I’d distribute them around the pan of water. I’d then place the bird directly over the water, close the lid, and return 6 to 8 hours later to retrieve the cooked bird (time varies on size of bird and charcoal). You can do the same with a lamb quarter or the above mentioned entries but you can also open and toss in some aluminum wrapped potatoes a couple hours prior to serving. You can adjust this with the amount of charcoal for an 8 hour or such work day and put the meat on the grill in the morning and take it off in the evening.

    My understanding is that the Egg uses chunk charcoal or such which I have to admit my ignorance on. I’m not sure how you’d acquire that circular heat around your water or if you’d even use the water at all. It seems like meat would dry out without it, particularly with something like a whole boneless pork loin which has very little fat. Would one use bacon to substitute fat or such?

    I’ve seen the Eggs and to be honest, it would likely be a good investment from a quality perspective. I can go through a $70 Weber in a year of solid use and that’s not to mention the charcoal consumption. The Eggs are impressive and I’ve flirted with buying one. The only thing that’s stopped me is $1000. Probably, the only thing that’s stopped me is the sales person really didn’t understand cooking and couldn’t answer my questions enough to pull that $1K from my pocket. So, if you dine at my bbq, I’ll do my best to impress you with my bbq, not with the price of my cooker.

  • timcooper62

    Mine is a Primo Komado…I paid about half of what the BGE costs. It works just fine and the Primo company is supportive. I have had a cracked fire ring, and they sent me a new one without question. I got it about 15 years ago at their warehouse off of Jimmy Carter Blvd. Not sure how the Primo prices compare to BGE now though.