Morsels from a Sisters Food Enthusiast: "No Time to Brine"

I've been known to do some crazy things in the pursuit of a perfect turkey.

Even in college, where I majored in mathematics, my thesis revolved around roasting meat. I examined and modeled the heat flow of a cooking turducken - that marvel of meat created when a chicken is stuffed into a duck, which is then stuffed into a turkey. I felt the study offered insights that might help all Americans overindulge in a poultry protein fest, and I considered myself a budding "gastronomathematician."

In preparations for the Thanksgiving feast I have brined birds for hours, stuffed them carefully with herbs and a few hand-selected juniper berries that I harvested in the forest, and gently massaged them with butter.

I have shoved sage leaves or-my father's misguided favorite-forced lemon halves underneath the skin, turning the term "turkey breast" into a most apt description. (If you can't picture what I'm talking about, google images for "lemons under turkey skin.")

I have smoked the turkey, I have fried it (Sisters Fire Chief, Tay Robertson, encourages caution while submerging a turkey in a cauldron of hot oil), and I have flipped hot carcasses from one side to another.

This year a foodie friend of mine lamented that diligent cooks spend too much time thinking about turkey.

Of course, I thought about that.

Perhaps the time I spent looking for a turkey raised more carefully than a coddled child was in vain. All those hours I've spent nursing the turkey breast with an ice pack in order to keep it from cooking too quickly compared to the thigh... were they a waste of time?

The answer is a resounding "yes" when I scan Sisters Country and my friends, inquiring about their favorite Thanksgiving dishes.

Melvin Herberger, of Melvin's Fir Street Market, is all about the pumpkin pie, even going far enough to suggest people should "eat less dinner and save more room for pie." Superintendent of the Sisters School district, Jim Golden, likes the chorizo corn-bread stuffing his family makes each year for the Thanksgiving meal. Tami Meritt, of Desert Charm, says her family will be eating-gasp-homemade nachos on Thanksgiving. No one acknowledged turkey as the true highlight of the Thanksgiving dinner.

Turkey is clearly not the star on the Thanksgiving plate. Why then should I spend over 24 hours on a bird when I could pursue other traditional Thanksgiving pastimes, like annoying family members and watching football?

This year I am looking for a turkey that is neither dry, nor time consuming, and I have searched for the perfect recipe. I have cooking magazines sprawled across the floor of my living room. Cookbooks balance on my bedside table (I like to read them before bed and drift into giblet gravy dreams).

Unfortunately, most of the recipes I consulted would require wrestling coolers and bags of ice, and prodding the turkey countless times before completion. One of the recipes instructed me to butterfly it and remove the backbone, but I am desperately trying to avoid butchering projects. Some of recipes take inspiration from countries I've never even visited, resulting in a creation that would likely clash with the traditional components of the all-American feast. I just can't feel good about making a turkey that doesn't taste right under a staggering amount of gravy.

So I called my mom. She's been roasting turkeys for 28 years-longer than my entire life span.

This year I will not brine. With a nod to the Sisters Fire Department, I will not experiment with home fryers that elicit a shriek from my smoke alarm. I will not wrap my turkey in butter-soaked cheesecloth. I will opt for

simple.

My mom told me to start with a room temperature turkey, tent foil over the breast, and roast it with a little butter, salt and pepper. Keep it simple. When the thigh hits 165 degrees, as measured by a handy meat thermometer, take the turkey out of the oven and let it rest for a half an hour so the juices can settle back into the meat.

I've decided on an oven temperature of 425 degrees - a healthy compromise, I think, between advocates of high temperatures and those that favor the old-fashioned slow-roasting method. Roasting the turkey should take about two-and-a-half hours for my 16-pound bird, leaving me ample time to pursue other Thanksgiving activities - like listening to my mother.