TURKEY’S REVENGE: I BOUGHT A BONE TURKEY FOR THANKSGIVING

Friends and food mean a lot when you don’t have much.

We were poor college students, over 1,600 miles from home, when my wife and I celebrated our first Thanksgiving.

Holidays make us miss home. But I’ll never forget how proud and excited we felt to host Dave Tricky, a fellow student, and his girlfriend for our first Thanksgiving. (Yes, that’s his real name. I soon learned the trick was on me.)

We were becoming real adults. My bride was 19. I was 20. It was 1976.

We moved our tiny kitchen table to the slightly larger living room and stationed it uncomfortably close to the front door to accommodate the crowd of four.

After the blessing, I ceremoniously stood as the “man” of the house, to proudly carve the bird. It was one of life’s great moments.

But the knife didn’t slice into tender breast meat. IT HIT BONE!

I poked the blade around. The whole damn turkey was bone.  I had purchased a bone turkey!

If not for the drumsticks and wings, it would have been Thanksgiving without turkey.

Dave and his girlfriend probably stopped at a fast food joint on their way home.

After our guests left, I carried the bone-bird to our tiny kitchen to scavenge the remains, defeated. (We could use even sparse leftovers.)

Thankfully, we didn’t just throw the bone-bird in the garbage.

In the processes of cleaning the carcass, I flipped the bird to find two succulent turkey breasts, staring up at me. I’d carved the bone-back of the turkey.

We cooked the bird upside down!