Crybaby wrote:We smoke turkeys quite often -- they're not only delicious but friends beg us to be invited or to share. We used to make as many as 8 (what a pain -- we took turns getting up in the middle of the night for several nights to remove a turkey from the smoker!) to give as Christmas presents to friends and neighbors.
One lady who lived several blocks away and passed our house all the time saw us loading them up all in the trunk for delivery right before Christmas (they looked so good and so pretty, too). She said it was her dream to get on our Christmas list. Well, she made the list the following year and stayed on it until she moved away with her elderly husband after Katrina. When we delivered her smoked turkey the first year, she wasn't home but her husband said, "Weezie (her given name was Louise) said she thought you might be coming by this year." We had to laugh, as she knew we were quite smitten with her. I'd "gift wrap" them in brown-in-bags taped up on the bottom so they looked neater with a wired ribbon bow and a card on them. I'd keep an eye out all year for pretty ribbon to use and they looked gorgeous. Plus, after you ate some turkey, you could slide them right back in that bag before refrigerating. We still put ours in one after smoking to this day.
When I worked as a legal secretary/paralegal, I hated to spend a ton of money on presents for my bosses. So we'd smoke them a turkey as well (we did 12 to 14-lb. turkeys for gifts). One year one of my bosses said he froze it and his family, including his in-laws, defrosted it and reheated it about a month later. He said his FIL, Mr. Formigue, wanted to know EXACTLY how we'd made it, as it was the best smoked turkey he'd ever had.
One of my favorite bosses, a female attorney named Daphne, went home with half a bag on right before Christmas. She said that "damn smoked turkey" was her "saving grace," as she walked in with it and once her husband, also an attorney, got a look at her drunken self, she said, "But Stephen, look what I brought for dinner -- a delicious smoked turkey!" I swear, we got the nicest phone calls and cards for weeks after Christmas. Daphne and Jack, my other boss with her, would give me a large gift certificate to Williams-Sonoma each year so their eyes lit up the first year I told them their present would be homemade. I heard Jack on the phone telling his wife the day I brought the turkeys, "Betsy, don't bother cooking or buying anything for that party we have to go to. Michelle brought me a smoked turkey and we can take that!" He told me later it was the hit of the party and he'd have claimed he made it if he thought a single soul would've believed him. I saved up their gift certs. for a couple of years and spent $800 at Williams-Sonoma! It was a blast and a half as I felt like I was getting everything for free. About $125 was my money, which Brian didn't understand but I told him, "Just think of it as my getting $800 of stuff for $125 and he shut up!
There was a joke between Brian and me about our original list of eight Christmas turkey recipients, which included a disabled neighbor who lived with several of his merchant seamen friends across the street from us when we lived in Uptown N.O., was that you had to die to get off our Christmas list. Sadly, it was true. Every single recipient except Ms. Weezie is deceased now. One man who we knew from a "neighborhood" bar/restaurant got on the list when his wife passed away right before Christmas. He cried when we showed up with a turkey for him. When he wasn't able to be at the bar the weekend before Christmas after he realized we'd bring him one EVERY year, he made sure one of his grown kids was there (the bartender would introduce them to us) to get his turkey!
Brian was in the shipping (steamship) business for years and every year his office of about 8 to 10 had a potluck for Thanksgiving and Christmas. They each got a free turkey from vendors they dealt with and usually one extra in case someone was forgotten. Each year they asked him to smoke them a turkey. We got to leave our turkey in the company freezer, too, until we were ready to use it, which was great, as we smoked the "extra" one for his office. Plus Brian always took the turkey carcass home for gumbo, too. This continued for a couple years after he retired until he finally told them he couldn't do it anymore, mainly 'cause of my being ill.
All I can say is unless you just don't like smoked flavor, you just haven't had a smoked turkey that was cooked properly -- moist with smoky flavor but not over-smoked. And it makes the best gumbo (we make smoked turkey, andouille and oyster gumbo) you ever tasted. Talk about depth of flavor! First I strip the meat off the carcass and make smoked turkey stock prior to starting the gumbo. Making the stock first makes a superior gumbo IMO though my mom's was good and she threw the whole thing in rather than doing it that way. But like Beth, I don't like the little "pieces" of stuff that accumulate in the bottom of the pot unless I make the stock from the carcass first and have no bones in my gumbo. She knows what I mean...
I'm laughing, as I am picturing Jimmy getting a cup of coffee prior to reading my extra-long message. Thanks for listening...
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