With A Little Help From My Friends

Last Saturday, we continued the Ricca Family Tradition and celebrated our seventh Friendsgiving with almost fifty people in our home. The idea is a simple one: most of our friends will scatter around the state and the country to celebrate the official Turkey Day, and we want to have time to be with them and their families. My Wife and I prepare the turkey and the stuffing, provide dessert and drinks, and everyone brings a side dish to share.

We got up early and dressed the thirty-five-pound turkey, and Tom (as we affectionately call him every year) was in the oven, pre-heated to 325 degrees, at 8:30. He would stay there comfortably for at least the next six to six and a half hours. We had plenty of other things to do in the kitchen and the rest of the house after that. We would check on the turkey periodically, baste it, and make sure it was progressing as we would expect it to.

Around 11:30, when My Wife checked in on Tom, there was a little smoke coming up from the bottom of the oven. Some of the chicken stock we had put in the bottom of the roasting pan had "leaped" out of the pan and was smoking. We carefully pulled Tom out and put him on top of the oven and tried to figure out what to do. Ultimately we decided to use baking soda to stop the smoldering, but that left us in a bit of a bind. How were we going to cook Tom for the remaining three to three and a half hours? And where were we going to cook the stuffing?

We immediately started calling and texting friends. Who was home and could spare their oven for the next three and a half hours? One of our dearest friends got back to us and was already on her way over in their car to help us out. Five minutes later, I was in her front seat, with a cutting board on my lap, holding the roasting pan with two bright red oven mitts. I don't think she drove more than ten miles an hour so that the chicken stock would not spill.

Someone else was offering to cook the stuffing we had already prepared. We brought the two trays of stuffing down the street to their house. Would it matter that Tom sat out of the oven for almost forty-five minutes? I had no idea - this had never happened to us before. We would find out at dinner later that evening.

By all accounts, this was one of our best turkeys we've ever cooked. I don't know if our friends were being kind - although it did taste very good to me. I don't know if this means that in the future we need to take our turkey out for between a half hour and forty-five minutes next year. I don't know if we should plan for something else to go wrong next year.

What I do know is this: Friendsgiving happened in the Ricca House this year, because of our Friends.

Photo courtesy of Mr. Charles Schulz