A Turkey for Your Thoughts

At the Safeway store in sleepy, little Middleburg it is usual for me to encounter bargains. Recently I had the opportunity to buy three fully cooked Butterball smoked turkeys for about five dollars each. The butcher told me that the frozen turkeys were marked down because they were "tired of having to inventory them every week." Now I must acknowledge that a whole turkey is quite a lot of turkey for a woman living alone. And three times a whole turkey is...well, a lot of turkey.

Today, I dealt with turkey #2, which had been thawing slowly in my refrigerator. I sliced the breast to use in salads. I chopped the dark meat to use in a turkey salad spread. I wrapped the legs and wings individually and re-froze them; I will use them to flavor bean soups and greens. Finally, I used the bones and the remaining meat to make stock, adding a little vinegar to leech the calcium from the bones. A lot of work, but worth it.

This is the same Safeway store where Elizabeth Taylor shopped when she was married to Virginia Senator John Warner. I wonder if she ever bought a smoked turkey.