Brining a Turkey

The local grocery store ran a promotion last month where if you spend x amount of money within a certain time period, you could receive either a free frozen turkey breast, Stoffers frozen lasagna, a ham or something else.  Two years in a row now I've managed to hit that dollar amount, and opted to get a Shady Brook frozen turkey breast.  I know, frozen doesn't taste as good as fresh, but who can argue with free???  I was going to spend the money buying groceries, so this was a nice perk.

Satuday, I started thawing the 7 pound breast and Sunday morning, I decided to try brining it.  The Joy of Cooking said to mix 2 cups of salt (or 4 cups kosher salt) to 2 gallons of water for a 15-25 pound turkey.  Since my bird was half the weight, I decided to halve the mixture... thankfully that was easy!  I also have an enormous mixing bowl in which somehow this all fit.  My back up plan was to use the water cooler we have, but thankfully I didn't have to go there.  If I do get a bigger bird in the future, I'll have to use that and put store it in the garage while it soaks, since the brining process requires a cool/cold environment.  If it's hot outside, the brine will have to include ice.  If it's winter, no extra measures needed!  So in this case, the bird went into the refrigerator.  Have I told you how much I love our refrigerator??

Six (6) hours later, I rinsed the bird, stuffed it with a quartered lemon and a halved head of garlic, buttered the skin, and stuffed it into the oven.  Covered it about 45 minutes into the cooking process, and then waited until the internal temp got close to 165 degrees, which Joy of Cooking says is the max turkey breast meat should get else risk overcooking it.  At 159 degrees, I decided to see if the little popper had popped, and it had, so out the bird came.

That turkey was so juicy and moist, it was awesome.  No gravy (or salt!) required. 

A friend of mine has suggested adding apple juice to his brine, so I don't know that would change the taste.  I may well try that next time!

Mmmm... turkey sandwich for lunch....

Stuff White People Like

Yeah, I know that title sounds really prejudice, but it's actually the name of a blog I've read that makes fun of all sorts of things.  The bottom line... you have to be able to laugh at yourself, and this blog certainly seems to accomplish that with its satire about some of the more mundane things in life...

The first one that caught my eye was a blog about bumper stickers.  This had more truth to it than I had anticipated when I first started reading it, and thought it was really well done.  Here's an excerpt:

It is a fact that white people will never turn down an opportunity to enlighten other people on the correct way to think. While this is very easy to do through email or face to face conversation, it is exceptionally difficult to do while driving a car. Fortunately for white people there is a solution that is both popular and ineffective: bumper stickers.

The next one that caught my attention was about the Ivy League.  Having applied but not accepted to an Ivy League school - twice - I was thorougly amused by this:

[White people who did not attend an Ivy League school] desperately need a source of comparison so that they need to figure out if you are actually smarter than them. In fact, the only way to stop this line of questioning is to imply that you only got in because of your minority status. Once you say that, white people will stop feeling threatened since they can now believe they too would have been accepted to an Ivy League school if they were a minority. It also gives them a personal story about the effectiveness of Affirmative Action.

That is special right there. 

This last one I saw that I enjoyed was one about frisbee sports e.g. Ultimate Frisbee or Frisbee Golf.  Being that my alma mater was "big" into Ultimate Frisbee as part of its line of intramural activities, I found particular amusement in this:

If you look a little closer, you will see some surprising things. First, you will never see hippies get more upset than on an Ultimate Frisbee field. It can be jarring to see people who look like they should be playing acoustic guitars yelling at each other about whether or not Blake stepped out of bounds. Secondly, you will notice that Ultimate Frisbee matches are the best place to meet white guys who wear headbands.

Ding.  This was my alma mater's culture surrounding Ultimate Frisbee to the letter!

The Muppets do Bohemian Rhapsody

A blog I've recently started reading is called Geek Dad - tips on tech toys, science projects, and other nerdy things to do with your kids.  It is a part of Wired Magazine's website.  I don't read every article, but I have found more and more articles interesting reads, whether it's because it touches on my own childhood or because it's just cool stuff.

Yesterday, my RSS reader brought me a Geek Dad blog article... The Muppets Do Bohemian Rhapsody.  I couldn't watch it at work, so I saved it and watched it at home.  I had just started it when Steve came into the room and asked, "What's THAT?!"  (hearing chickens singing is an attention getter...LOL).  He sat down next to me, and the hilarity ensued.

This was AWESOME. 

-----

MAMAAAAA!!!!!! 

Mama?  Yoohoo!  Mama!

The Shed

There is a shed in the back of our property.  It's a nice shed; we just don't have much use for it right now.  And as it has sat, the interior has become more and more bug infested which rapidly reduces its attractiveness to go in it, much less use it.

Yesterday, being that it was a perfect day, I decided to clean the shed.  I took everything out of it, and then swept out all of the bugs, leaves, and cobwebs.  I swept the walls, the ceiling, and the doors.  It was disgusting.  And this is not to say it's not still disgusting... it's just less so.  I moved our patio furniture (minus the table) into it for the winter, and tried to shut the doors.  Although I can shut the the doors, they don't make a good seal - no wonder all that stuff gets in it.  I think they are warped, and I don't think I can do anything about it. 

Guess I'll be doing the same drill in the Spring when it's time to pull out the patio furniture.  Ugh.

States - follow up

On Monday, I drove to Arundel High School in Gambrills, MD, to attend the 3A semifinals.  I was assigned to sit at the scorekeepers table, taking stats, making sure there were no issues with the clock, time the timeouts, and count down the ends of the half on the field for the lead ref.  It doesn't sound like a lot as compared to actually running the game and making calls and relatively speaking, it's not.  But I was definitely busy.

The first game was Blake vs. Northern.  As it turns out, the woman who shares a cube wall with me at work is good friends with Blake's coach.  So she came to the game.  That was cool to see her there.  The two officials running the game are from my officiating Board, the Baltimore Board of Women's Sports (BBOWS), and the one official and I trained together for both lacrosse and field hockey.  We've known each other 10 years now!  The other ref and I have worked games together before, and the three of us had a good time officiating this game.  It was a nice relaxed atmosphere, but it would have been anyway, even if the game wasn't a snoozer.  The scorekeepers from each of the schools were boys + their friends, and they were all sharing out of the same Old Bay fries basket one of them had bought.  Boys will be boys, I thought.

The second game was Hereford vs. Mt. Hebron, two traditionally strong field hockey schools.  So I expected a fast and furious game.  It certainly started out that way, and then Hereford just broke it open.  Although Hebron eventually scored, the game was pretty lopsided.  It's clear that Hereford's turf field has allowed Hereford to take their game to another level.  The scorekeepers for this game were all girls + their friends.  And they were sharing lolipops.  I commented that what they were doing was good for the swine flu, and they all just shrugged it off.  Girls will be girls, I thought. 

The on field officials for this game were from the Anne Arundel County board, one of them being the infamous Sue Diff.  Now I have most certainly heard of Sue Diff, notorious as a lacrosse ref (and I think college assignor?), but never had an opportunity to work with her.  I've heard stories (good and bad), and the woman is just a legend.  So here I was, faced with having to work with Sue Diff at a state semifinal game.  She's never heard of me, and I'm just... sitting back and saying nothing because I have heard that I want no parts of being on her bad (as opposed to good) radar. 

The game started, all was normal.  The first half ended, no issues.  That's when my first "Sue Diff" story happened for me.  Sue came to me and said, "Go tell the announcer that the foul is not called "raised ball".  It's "Dangerous".  Not all raised balls are dangerous." 

::blink:: 

She's serious.  And she's not even complaining about the other names for fouls that aren't correct either... just the "raised ball" one.  I mean, if it matters to you what it is the announcer is saying, then why not correct the others, too??  Needless to say, I was confused about that, but whatever.  She made it clear that I had to go tell him.

Good thing it was a 10 minute halftime because I had to trek all the way around the stadium to get to him to tell him.  He got it right for the rest of the game, though I think I caught a sense of sarcasm whenever he'd say it, not that I blame him. 

The second half began, and all was going well until Sue Diff stopped the game.  It was clear she was going to card someone.  Side note: I wouldn't have pulled out cards for that foul, but I am averse to using cards.  I feel like I can handle the situation without the need for cards.

Anyway, Sue Diff goes to pull out her cards.  She hunted for them, couldn't find them.  Game was restarted.  When she had a free moment near the scorers table, she called me over to her.

"Do you have your cards?" 

"Yeah!" 

"Can I borrow them?"

I rushed off to get them out of my bag and handed them to her. 

There it was.  The great Sue Diff didn't have her cards.  Hilarious!!!

One of the state athletic administrators saw the whole thing, and couldn't wait to give Sue all sorts of grief for it.  He also said to me, "Don't you say a word or you'll never see another Varsity game again in this state!"  To which I replied,

"Good thing I'm not a part of her officiating board and that I'm not a lacrosse official!" 

So now I have a Sue Diff story of my very own. 

States!

On Friday, I got a call from my field hockey assignor that I was awarded not 1, but 2 state championship (semifinal) games for today!  Unfortuntely, I don't actually get to run them but instead I will be running the clock and making sure that all of the procedural stuff goes smoothly.  If I were actually officiating, I'd have only been assigned 1 game, like I was in 2007.  Either way, I'm stoked to be involved with 2 state playoffs!