Cooking Your Bird? Here's Last Year's Advice

Last year, I delivered advice on how to cook your Thanksgiving bird.  I have the link for you here as a reminder in case you have not forgotten it.

Happy Thanksgiving

Psalms 100:4.

November 26th Will Be A Sad Day in Northeast Philadelphia

On a crisp late autumn morning, they will be playing a high school football game.  And it will be the end of an era as well.

After eighty-two games, eighty of them on consecutive Thanksgiving mornings at 9:45 AM that Thursday, the last game of an epic local Philadelphia neighborhood rivalry will be contested at Frankford War Memorial Stadium.  It was considered to be the oldest Public High School vs. Parochial High School Football Rivalry in the USA, but now, the closure of Northeast Catholic High School for Boys will make that annual game vs. Frankford High School just a memory.  It will be the last time, barring a trip to the PIAA state playoffs, that North's  football team will take the field, hoping to close out an era that was a success against their neighborhood rival, with a record of 41 wins, 34 losses and four ties. (You did know before overtime was established, games ended in ties, right Donovan F. McNabb?)

Long before desegregation, long before there were no feeder schools, you were either a Frankford Pioneer or a North Catholic Falcon, plain and simple.  You either wore the red, blue and gold of Frankford, or the red and white of North.  Families were divided, neighbors hated each other, think of, say, Auburn-Alabama but on a smaller scale.  With that, and sad as it might seem, I give you the words to North Catholic's Alma Mater in memory of this great rivalry.

See our banner wave proudly before us,

Colors gleaming in hues ever glorious!
Flag of honor, o'er foe victorious,
Led thou on to the triumph we gain...

(CHORUS) Onward, Onward! Behold where dawns the glory!
Hail, alma mater, our North Catholic High!
Sing with joyful heart and voice the story!
Hail, alma mater, our North Catholic High!

May the sunshine of youth never leave thee!
And the shadow of age never grieve thee!
Falcon symbol, we now salute thee!
Sons who love and revere thy fair name...

(CHORUS) 

And Onward, Onward to the future...sadly, without a North Catholic-Frankford game.

Countdown Live Blog: 11/26/08

We have 54 days until the inauguration of Barack Obama, we've had 2,037 days since "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq, there's 29 days until Christmas, one day until Thanksgiving (and a short recess from the live blogging for that holiday weekend until Sunday Night's Football Night in America) and 66 days until Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa.

The Tie: Green.

Number 5: First, how the day before giving one's thanks went as illustrated by two presidents: Obama has his third presser in three days naming Paul Volker as chairman of the new fiscal oversight commitee as it were. What Mr. Bush was officially doing will be reported later on. Question: Are there too many Clinton holdovers? Answer: It depends on who you ask. Obama is promising change, and tells Baba Wawa to forget those holiday bonuses, illustrated by the misspending AIG's CEO now getting $1 in salary. Those who are going to food banks are up by a third from last year. Richard Wolfe is asked if Obama's the president right now, and it seems that way because it's a real recession, not a Neighborhood of Make-Believe King Friday XIII recession. The National Security team will be announced next week (December 1-5).

Jonathon Alter is in the studio to discuss the imfamous recession that started with tax cuts that went to the working class to the rich. Like many sports teams, the rich (major markets, power franchises) got richer and the poor (small markets, weaker teams) were given the scraps. Hence where the bailouts go, Wall Street first, Main Street afterwards. Even Bush XLIII delayed his turkey pardon photo op by a half hour to allow Barack XLIV to have another press conference.

Number 4: The Indian financial capital of Mumbai (fomerly Bombay) was attacked by terrorists, and the updated numbers (as stated beforehand) stands at 82 dead, over 120 injured (including one American) on an out-and-out attack of Americans and British as hostages. Nice way to start the holiday weekend here in the States. The unkonwn group used AK-47's, hand grenades and other assualt weapons and bombs. Roger Cressey joins us to explain it all with the hostage drama, which takes place in two hotels. Other sites: Two hospitals, a train station, and a couple eateries.

Oddball: Get well Allissa Genardi, in the hospital for Thanksgiving. Cops in chase in New Mexico, and the perp in a moment of stupidity when he gets run over by his own truck. And in Virginia, a Union soldier is eaten by a dinosaur. What the guy is doing is beyond stupid...

Best Persons: #3 - Kushiro Zoo in Japan has problems with polar bears making whoopee. They were females. #2 - A group of people was released after making whoopee in the Metrodome, girl released to her husband; male released to girlfriend. #1 - Washington, DC robber was blinded with red dye. Pants fall down. And as they say at fark.com, "Hilarity ensues" as he had no skivvies!

Musical Segue: "Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This" by The Shirelles. Wow, my oldies station flipped to a Classic Christmas format today, too.

Number 3: Tonight's "What Do We Now" segment does ask about the terrorist moments, Gitmo, waterboarding, torture, other stuff. No pardons for those from Bush XLIII, no charges from Obama. A commission forthcoming, but Jack Goldsmith, possibly a suspect, says fat chance. John Dean is surprised by the way this is going to go, as difficult as it may seem.

Bushed!: #3 - More pardons of those inculding the executives involved in the imfamous 1980 Savings and Loan swindling fiasco. Lots of them. From Texas. #2 - Richard Sanders addressed Robert Mukasey and was called a "tyrant!" #1 - Karl Rove claimed "At least at the White House I was in, policy won out." Yeah, right. Who in the bluest of blue hells are you to explain that? Welcome to Dream Street.

Number 2 (Worst Persons in the World):

Bronze - An executive about Sarah Palin from an internet radio station. Hey, where are the French Canadian pranksters now that we need 'em?

Silver - Glenn Beck thinks that the states that didn't vote for McCain should succeed. Say, remember when the Civil War was fought and the dinosaurs were around?

Gold - Andrew Ross Sorkin and The New York Times started the fact that GM workers made $70/hour to blame those who brought about the current crisis. That had been a lie, it's $28/hour. The whole thing was dishonest as if it ever was. Insert the line that the Times has a great comics section.

UPDATE ON NUMBER 4: Indian hostage crisis and mass murder gets sadder.

Number 1: Oh, the hilariousness of the Sarah Palin Turkey pardon slaughter goodness...the parodies have started. President Bush has pardoned Pecan and Pumpkin to Disneyland for tomorrow's Thanksgiving activities. The tradition by the way, did not start with Harry Truman as many thought, but with Tad Lincoln, Abe's son.

Now back to Sarah and the Turkey Slaughter. David Letterman chimed in with a Top Ten list of her excuses, you betcha! There's also parodies all over those interwebs from amateur filmmakers, and the best comes from slate.com. Backgrounds including Carrie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail ("It's only a flesh wound!"), Misery, Saturday Night Live and other fun stuff.

Well, that's it. Have a Happy Thanksgiving and remember the words of The Big Guy, Arthur Carlson, who said at the end of the famous WKRP in Cincinnati "Turkeys Away" episode, which has become a Thanksgiving tradition its' self on America One TV and WGN America: "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."

How To Cook A Turkey

Since this is the week before Thanksgiving, and I always get one free bird as a frequent shopper at certain supermarkets (I won't name them for fear of free publicity,) you're wondering "How does one cook a bird?" Well, faithful readers, I took the Alton Brown approach a couple years ago, and it has worked to perfection. Here's the steps that are used to do so.

STEP ONE. Before you cook your turkey, give it a good brining to allow the flavor to come out. Go down to a reliable home improvement store, buy a five gallon bucket used for mixing huge amounts of paint and a lid, and clearly mark this as a "Turkey Brining Only" bucket. In the spirit of Mr. Brown's multitasking stuff (the sole unitasker being a fire extinguisher), you can also use this as a seat by adding a pillow on top. Then, get a gallon of hot H₂O, a pound of ice, a cup of salt (Kosher will do, but sea salt is also good) and a cup of something sweet (sugar, brown sugar or even honey) and place your turkey with the giblets and neck removed from the cavity into the briney waters - Arrrrrrr! Sorry, my inner Pirate Rupert Murdoch - clamp on the lid and set for at least a day or two.

STEP TWO. Get yourself some alumimum foil, about a six inch by six inch square, and make a breast plate by forming it on the front of the bird upon it. Also, to make the skin brown, use olive oil (extra virgin is okay, but any type olive oil will work.) Heat at 500 degrees for the first half hour, then turn it down to 350 for fifteen minutes per pound thereafter. (A 12-pound bird will take three hours as an example, adjust accordingly.) Remember, don't trust that pop-up timer on your bird, it pops at a certain time, but it contains a ceramic substance and the rest of the bird won't be cooked well.

There you have it. Just an advance way of saying "Happy Thanksgiving" a week early. If it were Ben Franklin's perogotive, the turkey would have been the national bird (and the Philadelphia NFL team would have been called the Turkeys) and we'd be eating eagles for Thanksgiving. Thankfully, it didn't turn out that way...unless you were the NFL team and you've been playing like turkeys.