Not in Front of the Turkeys, Please

For the last eight years I have spent every Christmas in Phana. It never seems like Christmas despite all the jingle bells and the ever-growing presence of Christmas-related goods in Tesco Lotus and Big C, to say nothing of their female staff decked out as leggy versions of Santa Claus. It doesn't matter, though, since Pensri and I are both Buddhists. But it has also become a tradition over these years for us to put on a sort-of Christmas lunch for the volunteers and for Nid and her husband Add who oversees their work for the Tetsaban. This has usually meant a roast dinner, of chicken or pork.

  This year was much the same except that we had recently come across some turkeys on our morning bike ride. (You can read about that in Don't Tell the Turkeys.) On the morning of Christmas Eve, when we were expecting a turkey to be delivered to our house, we learned that the man we had taken to be a turkey farmer was in fact a technician for the Electricity Authority and raising turkeys was just a hobby. He was having second thoughts about sacrificing one of his birds for our feast.

Luckily for us his wife is of a more commercial and persuasive turn of mind. So an oven-ready, very fresh turkey was delivered to us in the evening. Pensri cooked it as she once did in UK when our kitchen was out of commission one Christmas. Our only oven is a very small, electric one which was used to roast the potatoes, but the bird went into this large steamer heated by charcoal out the back of the house behind the kitchen. The bird was standing in a tray so that the juices would be caught and used  to make a soup/gravy together with various unmentionable turkey parts. Pensri inserted a quartered large onion, two quartered oranges and several sticks of lemon grass into the turkey. She was going to make a stuffing separately but forgot. You will notice that the legs of the turkey are missing. This is because a) they would not have fitted into the steamer and b) I wanted them 'reserved' for later roasting as part of my Dukan Diet.

 On top of the steamer you can see that we had to put a heavy mortar to keep the lid of the steamer from flying off. It creates a pressure cooker, effectively.

 

We also had to cook these vegetables and the soup/gravy ...

 

 

... in these pots on this stove
 

And that was how Christmas dinner was produced in Phana this year. There was more to eat, though, because Add brought along this cake ...

 and these fruits

 

And that, together with some Chocolate Heaven Banana Splits was Christmas dinner in Phana this year. But not for me, of course, thanks to my Dukan Diet. You can see how I got on with that HERE.

And what about the title of this blog? Well, cycling past the turkey-man's place this morning, Pensri said she would like to stop and tell him how delicious his turkey was. But she didn't because as she said "It wouldn't seem right to say that in front of the other turkeys."

 

 

Comments

[Mike]

Lawrence, that made me smile, regarding the supplier! Did you roast the bird on the BBQ after steaming to dry it out a bit?

[Lawrence]

We should have roasted it at the end but ran out of time. Everyone was keen to start eating. Next year ...