Escaping the Herd's Bacon-Wrapped Turkey Recipe

With all the bad s**t going down in Ferguson, I think a lighter post is needed to help balance me out.  So with that in mind, I present my Bacon-Wrapped Turkey recipe.  It's a variation on an existing recipe I found somewhere online years ago, but over time I've added to and modified it so much it's practically it's own recipe now.

Ingredients:

• 1 Turkey, 14-22 pounds (I tend towards the 20+ pound birds because I cook for two families)
• 2 pounds of bacon, uncooked (if you have a smaller bird you may only need half that)
• 5 or so apples, chopped in medium-large chunks
• 2 onions, also chopped in medium-large chunks
• 5 or 6 stalks of celery, chopped in 3-4 inch chunks
• 1 bulb of garlic, all cloves separated and peeled
• 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil (what the hell, regular olive oil works fine too)
• Sage, 1 small bunch chopped (if you don’t have fresh sage, dried sage is an ok substitute)
• Kosher Salt & Pepper, whatever you feel is a modest amount
• Wooden Toothpicks

Instructions:

1. Heat the oven to about 400 F.
2. Take out the giblets bag and neck, rinse the turkey with lukewarm water (or cold water if it will be a little while until you put the bird in the oven), and dry with a paper towel.  Put the bird in the roasting pan
3. Mix the olive oil, chopped sage, and salt & pepper in a small bowl.  Then give that bird a good rubdown of that mixture on the outside and then the inside of the turkey cavity.  I usually leave any of that extra fat and skin around the cavity on the bird so it can add to the drippings (fat adds to the flavor).
4. Stuff that bird full of the chopped apples, onion, garlic cloves, and celery.  Any remainder that won’t fit inside you can put on the bottom of the pan under the turkey where it will cook and mix with the drippings.  Tie up the turkey’s legs/drumsticks together with twine, or that turkey leg-cuffs metal doohickey that sometimes comes with the bird.  The turkey should be breast-side up, with the wings tucked underneath the turkey.
5. Drape the bacon slices across the turkey.  I lay the bacon strips more or less in a parallel fashion, but I’ve seen other recipes where they lay the bacon criss-cross fashion on the bird.  I’m sure either way works equally well, so feel free to go nuts and do what feels right.  I try to concentrate more of the bacon around the breast of the bird, but wrap the bacon around the legs, wings and sides of the bird too, using the wooden toothpicks to secure it as necessary.  Basically try to cover the whole bird except for the parts resting on the roasting pan rack.
6. Put your meat thermometer in the inner thigh (that sounds like something Family Guy's Quagmire would say).  It should be good and deep in the inner thigh, but shouldn’t be touching bone.
7. Cover the bird loosely with aluminum foil, so loosely that it barely touches only a few parts of the turkey.  You can leave a little space so you can see the thermometer, but since the foil won’t be on the whole time it’s not really an issue.
8. Put the turkey in the oven, and then lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees F.  Now I don’t baste my turkeys and they turn out great, but if you want to do it feel free.  I just think it’s better to maintain a more constant temperature in the oven, that’s all.  As for cooking time, the 20-21 pound birds I get usually are done in a little bit more than 4 hours, but there are many cooking time charts like this one (http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/howtocook/primers/turkey_stuffingandroasting) where you can get a reasonable estimate based on your bird's weight.  These times are just guidelines though, and it's the internal temperature that will tell you when it's done.
9. I take the foil cover off about 2/3 of the way through the anticipated cooking time (about an hour and a half before the estimated cooking time ends).  This is just so the turkey and the bacon can get some color.  If the bacon or turkey skin already looks pretty dark, keep the foil on longer.
10. When both the thigh meat and the breast meat reaches about 160 degrees Fahrenheit, take it out of the oven and put it on a platter or grooved cutting board that won't let the juices leak over the side.  Take that foil you removed earlier and loosely cover the turkey with it, and let it sit for 20-30 minutes while you make the gravy or attend to any other cooking tasks that need doing.  The internal temperature will continue to rise well above the 165 degree threshold of safety.  Meanwhile you can use the pan drippings to make your gravy.  
11. Take the apples, vegetables, and garlic out of the turkey cavity.  In the past I've tended to just throw them in the garbage because of uncertainty about insufficiently cooked turkey juices, but this year I think I'll try to simmer them and strain out the liquid for use in the gravy. 
12. Remove the bacon and the toothpicks.  The bacon will be really crispy, almost crumbly in texture.  I usually use the crumbled up bits to mix into the mashed potatoes, and put the rest on the side of the turkey for people to snack on as they like.  Prepare to see some competition for who gets the pieces of turkey skin, because that bacon grease just does something wonderful to the taste of it.

And that is pretty much that.  Being immigrants, my wife and in-laws didn't grow up with the Thanksgiving holiday and so they see this whole turkey cooking business as rather intimidating, but as you can see it's really quite easy.  They don't believe me when I say how easy it is, but I don't argue the point too much.  After all, I get to stay in the kitchen and read a book or play games on the tablet while THEY have to watch the kids.  Oh yes, poor little me....   :-)

Link of the Week

“The world is always ending for someone.”

― Neil Gaiman, Signal to Noise

This Link of the Week is a podcast I thought might be of interest to those who are concerned about the fragile nature of our economy, society, and lifestyles, but are put off by the ‘Doomsday’ association to anything related to “preppers”.  The podcast that follows is a very common sense breakdown of what’s really important, what’s much less important (even though we sometimes think otherwise), and some of the basic measures that are the most practical for us people who are NOT obsessed with bugging out to the wilderness to fight the rampaging hordes of Mutant Zombie Bikers….

The World Won’t End but Your World Could

Random Musing on a Movie "What If" Scenario

(Because not every post has to be super serious...)


I recently watched the movie "Predator 2" again, which I had last seen probably 15 years ago.  And one thing struck me this time, and I wonder if anyone else had this notion: other than causing the death of one of the alien Predators, the cop Harrigan (played by Danny Glover) and his team didn't affect the overall outcome for the better.  In fact, I think his involvement actually ended up causing more harm than good.  Let me explain.

So in the beginning after Harrigan and the cops find most of the Colombian Scorpion drug gang dead at the beginning of the movie, we find out from his conversation with his chief he was supposed to stay out of the building.  And after that, he was told to stay out of the penthouse where the Jamaican gang was slaughtered.  So what would have likely happened if he had actually obeyed orders, at least when it came to the penthouse? 

The alien Predator most likely would have left the cops alone, as its active interest in them appeared to have begun when they poked around in the penthouse.  With so many more active threats worth hunting like the rest of the drug gangs, it seems unlikely it would have bothered with the cops if they hadn't kept trying to investigate the Predator's activities.  So Harrigan's team would have likely all lived, and that scene in the subway probably wouldn't have happened since it was only the Predator's later interest in them that brought him to the subway in the first place.  Therefor all those armed subway commuters would still be alive, or at least SOME of them assuming there might have been a minor shootout anyway between the commuters and the street punks trying to rob that one commuter.  The Feds would still probably try to capture the Predator in the meat warehouse, presumably with the same tragic results for the government's capture team (in the movie Harrigan was not in the warehouse until practically all the team was dead, so his total absence probably wouldn't have affected that outcome).  The Predator would have likely then escaped the warehouse and the Feds.  Assuming the Predator is at least as intelligent as we are, and most likely significantly more intelligent, it would recognize the capture team as part of a larger coordinated operation by the resident authorities.  The most logical course of action would be to pick up stakes and leave, as its "hunting" would continue to be interfered with and there would be at least some possibility that it might be captured.

So if the protagonist had let the matter drop, the government team would still be dead and the Predator ship would still have escaped, but no cops or commuters would have been slaughtered by the Predator.  If anything, the Predator would have killed even more violent criminals and drug dealers if it hadn't been preoccupied with Harrigan and his team.  Harrigan didn't manage to save any lives, and the ONLY thing in the movie he changed for the better was killing ONE alien Predator.  But even that's of questionable benefit.  At the end of the movie Harrigan himself said he figured that the aliens would be coming back, so what difference did killing one really make in the grand scheme of things?  Perhaps the government ended up retrieving a few bits of their technology... the severed hand with part of the Predator's (now nonfunctional) wristband, its spear, and the dart found in the penthouse... but that's small potatoes.  The forensics doctor admitted that none of the materials in the dart corresponded to known elements (absurd I know but it's their story so I'll take it at face value), so material science couldn't advance much if they couldn't even identify what the alloys were made of much less how they were combined.  And it would be extremely difficult at best to reverse engineer much of use from a piece of an alien wrist-computer and a spear that, despite its alien nature, is pretty basic and non-complicated in what it does.

Anyway that's just my thought.  No moral or grand lesson here, just a random bit of 'what-if' fun.  Well maybe there's one takeaway from it... I could accept Harrigan's decision to barge in to the penthouse if he had a logical reason for disobeying orders.  But the way it plays out, it appears he does it out of stubbornness, territoriality, and pride.  I'm all for spirited insubordination to authority (or at least authority that is evil, sociopathic, or utterly clueless), but one should be smart about it and have good justification for it.  Reasons like 'because I feel like it' doesn't quite cut it.

The Advantage of Mobility and Flexibility

“You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.”    ― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

If there’s been one constant in how I’ve lived my life, it has been a focus on mobility and being flexible in life.  Through the majority of my adult life I’ve been able to fit the possessions I care most about in a small car, and I’ve made many moves and relocations doing just that.  In fact twice in my life I’ve lived between 3-8 months on simply what I was able to bring in two suitcases and a carry-on bag, and one of those being at an overseas location.  Now that I’m married and have a family the number of possessions has certainly grown, but even so the possessions that our family considers most precious would still fit in two suitcases a piece.  Even if extending that list of stuff to the ‘really-nice-to-haves’, it all would still fit in a mid-sized SUV (which coincidentally is our family vehicle).  Part of the reason I do this is because of my interest in travel and experiencing new places, but the other part is because early on I noticed how I was able to take advantage of various opportunities that more ‘rooted’ people have a difficult time of doing.  And while it has never come down to this for myself (at least yet), mobility and flexibility is a handy tactic for survival.

How Does One Define a Life that is Flexible and Mobile?

1) Keeping one’s material possessions to a modest level.  As with the Fight Club quote that started this post, the obsession with ‘stuff’ can get to the point where the stuff you own becomes more of a burden than a benefit.  Whenever making a significant purchase, try to avoid purchases that you will either be unwilling to lug it wherever you go or unwilling to sell and leave it behind.  

2) Limiting one’s attachment to material possessions.  This is just as, if not more important, than limiting the amount of one’s possessions.  Seeing your stuff as ‘just stuff’ is critical in staying mobile and flexible in life.  And when you truly grasp the truth that the majority of your stuff is easily replaceable with a little cash and/or time, you free your mind of being ‘owned’ by your stuff.

3) Having little or no debt.  Debt is the anchor that chains the majority of us to jobs we don’t like or situations we can’t stand.  The less debt you have the more flexible you are, so think very hard before taking any debt on.   

4) Having a healthy savings with a slight emphasis on liquidity.  Money is extremely useful when it comes to relocating or simply dealing with a changing situation.  Money helps you buy new furniture at a new residence after you move, or able to stay in the black when between jobs, or able to pay the bills when something unexpected comes up.  

5) Keeping expenses reasonably low and being frugal (but not cheap).  This goes hand-in-hand with the previous point (saving money), as keeping expenses to reasonable levels helps accomplish the other goal of maintaining a healthy savings.  As for frugal vs. cheap, I think it is best defined as follows: frugal is about knowing one’s priorities and appreciating value, whereas being cheap is only about finding the cheapest price period.  A frugal person is able to splurge when it comes to something important, but a cheap person is not.  I may be willing to accept mediocre quality for something I don’t care much about, but you won’t find me pinching pennies when it comes to buying a computer, a car, or a firearm.  

6) Embracing the information age.  It is wonderful being alive at a time when your movie and book collections can fit on one external hard drive, and that you can do most, if not all, of your banking, bill-paying, business, and communications from anyplace with an internet connection.  The ability to keep in touch with family and friends with Skype, Google Hangouts, and other such things is an immense help in staving off homesickness and preventing the drifting apart that so often happens when situated far from the people you care about.  

7) Keeping one’s eyes, and mind, open to new opportunities.  Simply put, being flexible and mobile isn’t of much use if you never see a reason to change your circumstances.  You have to spend a little of your time looking to see what’s out there.

The Disadvantages

Now all that being said, there are disadvantages with this lifestyle.  In exchange for mobility and the ability to quickly chase opportunities, one has to give up or severely limit some things that are dependent on staying in one place.  If you like gardening or other hobbies of a long-term and land-dependent nature, this won’t work well for you.  Likewise if your hobbies, work, or interests that take up a lot of space, like working on cars, carpentry & woodworking, fine arts, etc.  Also, this lifestyle pretty much requires one to rent vs. own when it comes to your residence.  As much as I find home ownership to be over-hyped, I do understand its benefits and the appeal.  So this lifestyle isn’t for anyone whose top priorities include owning their own home.  Lastly, it doesn’t really allow for putting down roots and being part of a community, which honestly does have advantages of its own that CAN outweigh the advantages of mobility.  This is best articulated by a recent podcast I happened to catch from thesurvivalpodcast.com; if you are interested you can find the podcast link here at The Case for Putting Down Roots.

The Growing Trend

So why am I trying to sell this idea when I acknowledge its disadvantages and the benefits of settling down?  The reason is that I see a growing trend towards contract jobs vs permanent employment, and for many of us mobility and flexibility will be our primary competitive advantage.  I keep my job profile up at various sites just to see what’s out there, and in the past couple years I’ve seen a huge increase in the number of temporary contract positions vs. full time positions advertised for IT and other technical positions.  Most of the various emails and calls I get are from recruiters looking to fill temporary contract positions or contract-to-hire positions, with only a minority looking for permanent hires.  The majority of these contract positions seem to offer a higher (sometimes substantially higher) pay rates, but no health coverage or any other benefits.  We can point fingers all we want as to the causes of the growing temporary/contract work force (the Affordable Care Act, the changing economy, shifts in supply and demand for certain skills, etc.), but at the end of the day we have to deal with the situation as it is and adapt accordingly.  I see a future where many of us will be changing jobs and residences at an even faster pace than now just in order to make a living, and we are going to find mobility may be an advantage, or possibly even a requirement, when it comes to staying employed.  This especially applies to those of us in the younger half of the worker spectrum, where we are often at a disadvantage with our relatively lower levels of experience.  The upshot of it is that it’s younger workers that usually are less tied down to a place and more willing and able to relocate, and that will help offset some of the experience disadvantages.  And while I feel this is a lifestyle better suited for the young, I think many older workers may find this to be advantageous as well.  With industries being created and dying out, many older workers are finding themselves starting in new career fields and having to compete with workers 20 or 30 years younger than they are.  And that can present its own set of challenges for those older workers.  I’m not saying I think this is a good thing, I’m just saying we have to face the situation AS IT IS instead of what we think it SHOULD BE.

When To Say When

There is no easy answer on when the time is right to put down roots, as everyone’s personality and opportunities are different.  I would say that as long as one remains an employee and working for someone else, it will be more of a challenge to stay in place.  So if one really knows it’s time to put down roots or is already ‘rooted’, I would encourage them to go into business for themselves if they have any inclination towards it at all.  At least on a part-time basis, a little something to grow one’s skills and earn a bit of money in addition to one’s regular job.  My family does actually intend to transition to a more permanent living situation over the next 10 years.  My wife would like to be able to have a garden and plant roses, and I would certainly like to eventually be able to have things like a large workshop, a firing range, and a place to plant fruit trees among other things.  And I think it’s no coincidence that the timing of this coincides with our plans to go into business for ourselves.  Yet there is still no doubt that this lifestyle has helped me a great deal up to this point in my life, and I think it can do the same for others as the job climate continues to shift and get more challenging. 

Link of the Week

This week I've got links regarding the Philae probe's recent landing on Comet 67P...

Comet lander: Camera sees Philae's hairy landing

"By Jonathan Amos, Science correspondent, BBC News 

High-resolution pictures have now been released of the Philae probe in the act of landing on Comet 67P last Wednesday.
They were acquired by the Narrow Angle Camera on the Rosetta satellite, which had dropped the little robot towards the surface of the "ice mountain".
The images are presented as a mosaic covering the half-hour or so around the "first touchdown" - the probe then bounced to a stop about 1km away.
.....
This rebound reached hundreds of metres above the comet and lasted almost two hours.
When Philae came back down, it made another small leap, which took it into a high-walled trap.
Telemetry and pictures from the robot itself indicate this location is covered in deep shadow for most of 67P's day.
As a consequence, Philae receives insufficient solar power to re-boot and form a radio link to the orbiting Rosetta spacecraft.
Esa cannot be sure the robot will ever come back to life, but even if it does not the agency says it is "hugely happy" with what was achieved in the more than 50 hours following landing.
The probe managed to complete over 80% of its planned primary science campaign on the surface.
.....
Scientists say this shows the icy material underlying 67P's dust covering to be far harder than anyone anticipated - having the tensile strength of some rocks.
It also helps explain why Philae bounced so high on that first touchdown.
The 4km-wide comet has little gravity, so when key landing systems designed to hold the robot down failed at the crucial moment - the probe would have been relying on thick, soft, compressive layers to absorb its impact.
However much dust it did encounter at that moment, it clearly was not enough to prevent Philae making its giant rebound."

You can read the full story at the BBC link here.


And lastly a little humor for you.... you find The Oatmeal's take on the story here.

Thoughts on Military Service and Better Ways To Express Our Thanks

"My problem has always been with authority, and I'm sure if anybody understands that, it's people in uniform."  -Lewis Black


So Veterans Day rolls around once again, and once again I feel as though much of the country is missing something important.  For example:

Veterans Day Means Freebies for Those Who Served

----------------
“Veterans Day is not only a time to honor those who have served in the military: For American businesses, it's also a time to back up that appreciation with a freebie.

A slew of locally owned businesses and national chains offered something free Tuesday to anyone who has served in the military — a trend that has been growing since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"I think it's pretty cool businesses are showing their appreciation this way," Rances said.”
----------------

Don’t get me wrong, I think businesses giving discounts and freebies as a ‘thank you’ for one’s service is a great thing and I encourage it.  My problem is that all the stories and editorials (the ones that I’ve seen anyway) don’t go much further than a basic acknowledgement and recognition of veterans’ service and sacrifice.  And the politicians are worse, too many of them using the holiday as a tool for propaganda and making themselves appear properly patriotic in the eyes of the voters.  What I’d really like to see in public discussion and the media are people questioning what our current political policies and the so-called “War on Terror” are doing to our men and women in uniform, and how a once-a-year “thank you” rings somewhat hollow when the political leadership’s selfishness, short-sightedness, and half-assed playing at realpolitik are putting those men and women unnecessarily in harm’s way.  There may be a lot of grumbling from military men and women about the insanity and idiocy that passes for some of the military leadership, but incompetent and unworthy officers and NCO’s can’t hold a candle to the enormous damage done to our military by our political leadership (and by extension, the corporate elite and special interests that pull their strings).

I had once seriously considered joining the military at one point, back in my mid-20’s.  I had decided that I wanted to go back to school to study engineering, and thought that the military would possibly be a good way to do that while at the same time giving something back to the country.  But do you know what ultimately killed that idea?  I felt I simply could not trust the political leadership.  I didn't feel I could trust them to deal with me honestly, or trust them to see me as anything but entirely disposable, or trust them to know which wars are worth sending people in harm’s way and which are not.  Seeing things like the Iran-Contra scandal and first Gulf War when growing up (and then all the various scandals and the crap that went on in through the 90’s) made me deeply skeptical of the motives and integrity of elected officials, and hearing my father recount some of the messed up stuff he’d both seen and been subjected to in the Army during Vietnam increased my skepticism further.  Needless to say, when later that same year George W. Bush was elected president and the disastrous “War on Terror” followed a year after that, my skepticism turned out to be well justified.  While ultimately I think I made the right decision for my circumstance and conscience, I do sometimes wish that things were different and that I could have had the opportunity to serve, at least for a short time, under civilian leadership that was honorable, pragmatic, and worthy of trust.

I’ve had the opportunity to work alongside a large number of currently-serving as well as retired military men and women through my previous two jobs, and many (if not most) of them expressed the same reservations about the political leadership’s decisions and lack of integrity.  They usually spoke in more general terms and didn’t mention certain individuals by name (a requirement when one such politician is your Commander in Chief), but the sentiment was there.  And yet many of them still stuck with it, for more than one enlistment if not for the full 20 years.  Perhaps trusting that they’re doing the right thing or maybe feeling a sense of responsibility they couldn’t discard lightly; I'm only guessing since I haven't served myself.  Now there were certainly a number of grade-A douchebags among the soldiers I worked with, people I would not willingly associate with in most other circumstances.  Yet even they were willing to put their lives and trust in others hands by the mere fact that they signed up and stayed in (or at least didn't try to weasel out before their time was up).  That’s something I was not willing to do, and so that speaks to a level of sacrifice that deserves a measure of respect for them whether or not they have the personality of a complete tool.  What better way is there to acknowledge this than to ensure their time, lives, and physical & mental health are not squandered by the political establishment’s questionable motives and decisions in carrying out the “War on Terror”, a war that by definition can never end as there is no specific opponent to defeat?  Our leaders talk about respect for the uniform and the patriotic soldier out one side of their mouth, while at the same time putting those same soldiers in harm's way for short-sighted power games and dreams of an American empire that actually hurt the country in the long-term.

Whether they fully understood it at the time they signed up and took their oath or not, the soldiers are putting their trust and lives in the hands of the civilian leadership.  In exchange that leadership has a responsibility to use those lives and resources in a responsible, sensible manner.  Unfortunately the majority of the decisions made over the past 13 years (one could also easily argue perhaps the past 50 years) have been neither responsible or sensible, and we're seeing the men and women in the military suffer for it in unnecessary combat deaths, physical injury, mental and emotional trauma, and suicides.  Yes these things often go with the job, but we owe it to them to expose them to those risks only for the defense of the nation.  When we give our consent to govern by voting for the ass-hats in both parties that keep involving us in these foreign military entanglements, any thanks we give to them on this day won't mean much.  So I say if honoring the troops on Veterans Day REALLY means a lot to you, look beyond the surface and see if your actions and decisions are helping or hurting the troops and the country in the long run.  If enough of us do this, maybe we'll have the kind of leadership that will inspire more young adults to consider military service as a worthwhile and honorable option (emphasis on 'option'!), instead of fearing their civilian leaders will use them for selfish and bone-headed purposes.

I'll end this with the following worthwhile links.  One is to the recent Veterans' Day podcast at thesurvivalpodcast.com, and the second is to one of the few articles I've seen that share my sentiments, one written by an Army vet titled, Why Do We Keep Thanking the Troops?

Link of the Week

Interesting article..... perhaps they should test the water and people in Washington D.C.  Though what I'd really like to see is one of the Colorado universities test the water around Denver for the related virus that makes the people here crappy drivers...

Virus that 'makes humans more stupid' discovered

"A virus that infects human brains and makes us more stupid has been discovered, according to scientists in the US.

The algae virus, never before observed in healthy people, was found to affect cognitive functions including visual processing and spatial awareness. 

Scientists at Johns Hopkins Medical School and the University of Nebraska stumbled upon the discovery when they were undertaking an unrelated study into throat microbes.

Surprisingly, the researchers found DNA in the throats of healthy individuals that matched the DNA of a virus known to infect green algae.

Dr Robert Yolken, a virologist who led the original study, said: “This is a striking example showing that the ‘innocuous’ microorganisms we carry can affect behaviour and cognition."

Read the full article here.