Barding a turkey

This is a little to long for a facebook post, so I'm putting it on the blog.

We have a lot to be thankful for this year. I'm looking forward to a feast with Muv and Pha and Caroline and we will miss Eleanor (in Chicago).

We have a long tradition of cooking too much food for Thanksgiving, even back to over 20 years ago.


This year we will bard the turkey. It's from Cook's Country (byAmerica's Test Kitchen), as have been many of our recent recipes. It's a 19th century technique where you place salt pork (unsmoked bacon) over the turkey breast as you roast it. I can't wait.

Right now is the fun part. I'm checking the timing on all the recipes and working backwards so I know when to start what. All chefs will tell you, the hardest part is having everything ready at the same time.

Let the preparations begin!

A new day dawns for the dogs

We've had a few times when Scout has gone into the red zone. She's a little high strung and once she gets agitated, it can get bad. I spent 90 minutes with the trainer this morning and we are beginning dominance training. Which really means that I just need to re-establish that I am alpha and that Mary Anne is second, both of us clearly ahead of the terriers.



Sparky has his part in things too. He is still only 17 months old and sometimes wants to play so badly that it just hurts. He's so cute that we sometimes haven't believed he was culpable.

Dominance training means that they wear their collars and leashes in the house for a time so I can make them do what I require as soon as I require it. Most challenging, no more time on the furniture. We have enjoyed having them curled up beside us on the couch or even draped over a leg on the bed while we watch TV. No more. In doggie world, them being above us physically means they are above us in pack order.

In the end, we'll have better behaved dogs. We can do it and aren't even too sad about it.