Katrina 51

Our good friend Jimi Holsinger arrived on Tuesday to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with us. On Wednesday I took Jimi and Jason Palmer out to see some of the devastated areas north of I-10. We stopped by Coop's house and disconnected his brand new Plasma TV from the wall and brought it over to the house to see if it would work. Amazingly, it did! Coop had already written it off, but we decided to give it a try. (We hooked it up to Cary's PowerBook in the living room and ran a screensaver of a fireplace Thanksgiving night.) Coop picked it up Thanksgiving evening and is thrilled that it works.

We drove by the road that runs right by the levee breech in Lakeview. There is actually still some seepage there that is still being pumped out. The devastation was still overwhelming, with entire homes washed away, or moved off their foundations and pushed down the road several hundred feet. Amidst all of this, there was one home where the owner had already moved back in and had a sprinkler watering the lawn!

Last year, Janis and I spent our 25th Wedding Anniversary with one of the all time greatest parties on Thanksgiving day at Coop's Place. We thought then that the food and company could never be better, and that perhaps we had truly reached a pinnacle in our party-giving. A milestone to which all others could be compared. If you were one of our guests, you know what I am talking about. This year, Thanksgiving actually fell on the day of our anniversary, and as much as we missed our out of town family and friends, it was another truly memorable party. This party was special because, with the exception of Jimi, everyone who attended lives in New Orleans.


Coop, Allie, and Sean Green	Miles, Juli Green, and Laura Roe

Kim and her son Karl

The weather was unseasonably warm – around 80 for a high, so many people enjoyed sitting outside in the evening. It is amazing how the company of friends can change an otherwise narrow, somewhat dingy driveway into a party! The food was actually better than last year, with all manner of stuffing, Deviled Eggs (lots of them!), potatoes (both regular and sweet), and many desserts. Janis made Sweet Potato Pie, Maker's Mark Pumpkin Cheesecake, and Maker's Mark Bread Pudding (with Maker's Mark Whiskey sauce, of course). We did a couple dozen Stuffed Jalapeno peppers on the grill (they disappeared almost immediately), and our entreé (of course) was deep fried Turkeys. Four of them.

Since our first post-Katrina cookout four weeks ago we have done 9 deep fried Turkeys, so I thought maybe it was time I clued you in on what the fuss was all about. Everybody has their own method, but I must be doing something right since we have yet to have any leftovers.

First you need a pot big enough to hold a turkey, a burner, a long-stemmed meat thermometer, about 3 gallons of peanut oil, and a propane tank. We have found 13-15lb turkeys work best. After thawing the turkey and removing the neck and giblets, put the turkey in your pot with no liquid in it and measure the volume of liquid needed to cover it by pouring pitchers of water into the pot. Make sure you count how many pitchers it takes to cover the bird. Remove the bird, dump the water, and fill the pot with the same number of pitchers of peanut oil, minus 1/2 pitcher.

Next, you need to inject the turkey with special seasoning. You can now purchase injector sauce in the condiments section of larger supermarkets. I have seen them all over the country. I buy one bottle of Cajun Butter injector sauce for each turkey, but I then "kick it up a notch." Here's my recipe:

Melt the butter, then mix all ingrediants thoroughly. While it is still warm, inject it into the thawed turkey, trying to get as much covered under the skin as possible. Make sure you turn the turkey over and do the other side as well. If you have any sauce left over, pour it over the bird, trying to get as much covered outside as possible. If you want it spicier, use a whole bottle of hot sauce (or better yet, use Habanero sauce!), and cover the outside with Cayenne Pepper before you put on the other spices.

Next, liberally rub Coop's Bayou Blend over the outside of the bird. You can use any good spice blend, such as Tony Chachere's or Zatarain's, but we are partial to Coop's Bayou Blend, of course. You can do this several hours in advance, but don't let the bird sit out more than 2 or 3 hours without refrigeration, and definitely don't leave it in the sun.

The key to having a well-cooked turkey inside and out is the oil temperature. If you make it too hot, the outside will burn, but the inside won't be done. Too cool, and the inside will lose its moisture before the outside is done. The ideal temperature is 350 degrees. So here is how to achieve it: first, allow the turkey to warm to room temperature. A warmer turkey will mean less cooling when it is put in the oil. Make sure your pot with the oil is in open air and away from things that could catch on fire. Also, make sure you either put some cardboard down under the burner stand, or that you have it in an area where you don't care if it bubbles over onto the ground. Heat the oil until it is at least 400 degrees. Turn down the fire and slowly lower the turkey into the oil.


Jason with the first Turkey.

I can't emphasize this enough: slowly lower the turkey into the oil. Too fast and the oil will bubble up. Believe me, it's not fun to have 400 degree peanut oil splash on your hand. Here's a video of a turkey being lowered. It is not in slow motion:

Once the turkey is all the way down, add a half-pitcher of oil and turn up the fire to high. The temperature could dip below 300. That's OK, but you want to get it back up to close to 350 degrees as fast as possible. If the temperature goes above 350, turn down the fire. You may have to keep an eye on it and adjust the fire until you get it to stabilize at around 350.

Figure on about 3 1/2 minutes per pound of turkey. So a 15lb. turkey should take just under an hour. The outside of the turkey should be dark brown. It could even be black in some places. Once you remove the turkey from the oil allow it to rest at least 15 minutes before carving. Enjoy!

(Oh, by the way, don't throw away those turkey bones. Instead, boil them down to create stock for Turkey Gumbo — I'll share that recipe in a future update.)

We would be remiss if we didn't take the opportunity Thanksgiving affords us to thank all our friends and family who made our forced exile from New Orleans bearable: Janis' cousin Connie, in Copperas Cove Texas, who was the first destination for Janis, Jarret, Andrea, and Andres; JoLynn Fee for her amazing hospitality and open invitation to make her home ours "for as long as you need;" Bernie Nagel (Janis' brother) for doing the same; Ralph and Judy Paulson as well as Dan and Bonnie Cruz for putting us up (and putting up with us) while we were in Racine; Cathy (Janis' sister) and Jeff DeFreese for loaning — and then selling — us their Jeep so we could travel as needed; Jim & Helen Eiseman, in Louisville, whose hospitality was way above and beyond the call; the Maker's Mark Distillery for their hospitality at the Bourbon Festival in Bardstown; Stan and Kelly Boyd in Nashville who almost literally saved us from doing serious injury to each other during our five day layover in Nashville during our first aborted attempt to return home; and Jamie and the rest of the folks at the Juicy Peanut, who made us feel at home.

There were also others who offered us their home who need to be thanked. There were times that we truly didn't know what we might be doing the next day. At one point, it looked as though we may not make it home before Thanksgiving (if even then), and we were determined not to spend any more than a week at a time with anyone in the hopes we could thwart wearing out our welcome. So most of these people were on our list of possible destinations at one time or another: Andy and Cindy Taylor in Barre, MA; my cousin Shelly, who practically insisted we visit her in Ohio (and we promise to make it there at some point in 2006); and Janis' cousins Barney and Loretta Nagel, who not only offered a place to stay, but were ready to help Adam and Megan get temporary jobs.

I'd also like to thank my good friend Jason Wallace, who not only offered us a place to stay should we want to come out to California, but acted expediently to move my web site to his servers so I could get this information out to you on a timely basis.

There were countless others who we heard from because of this site, most of whom were Coop's Place out-of-town regulars, who really made it possible for me to keep working on the site, since it was them that provided me with a sense of worth for what I was doing. There was one person, however, whose calm and consistent communications, as well as his determination to make sure we had the necessary resources at our disposal to do our online jobs really made a difference for us in that regard. David Williams, thanks for all you did. It may not seem like much, but just having those bits of communication from you meant a lot.

If I have forgotten anyone, I sincerely apologize. Any omission is due solely to my poor memory and not intended as a lack of appreciation for anything you may have done for us during those trying times. With any luck, this web site will be reporting great news of New Orleans' recovery at this time next year, and we will have a whole new set of things to be thankful for.

Many of the krewes complained about the city's plan to scale back Mardi Gras, pointing out that the entire event brings (on average) $21 million of revenue directly to the city and only costs between 4-5 million. So a compromise was reached. Parades will role on Saturday and Sunday, February 18th and 19th, then there will be a 3 day hiatus before parades begin rolling again on Thursday 2/23. They have also agreed to pay overtime for the police for the larger super parades.

So now that you know exactly what the plan is, what are you waiting for? The city guarantees at least 22,000 hotel rooms will be available, and the Visitor's and Convention Bureau is estimating 27,000. So make those reservations before it's too late!

If you can't afford a hotel, come on down anyway. We are planning on putting people on air mattresses and sleeping bags until they are literally wall to wall. Cary will probably have a place by then, so there will probably be some more floor space there — especially since he probably will not have completely furnished it by then.

I can't overstate this: whether you have ever been to Mardi Gras or not, this is the one you do not want to miss. We are already planning our menu, and we will have some of the best food you have ever eaten in your life, I GARONTEE. If you are reading this, you are invited. Go to the people page and click on my name to send me an email, or call my cell phone.

PEOPLE

- I purchased a bike and lock for Jason Palmer from the MacChuck Katrina fund so he wouldn't have to walk the approximately 3 miles to and from work every day.

Katrina Update #51

November 26, 2005; 1:00 PM

PEOPLE