Free Range Turducken

 

     Another Christmas has come and gone and I’m sitting here staring at the tree and already thinking about the complicated process of taking it down, boxing up the delicate ornaments, folding up the tree skirt and all the other things that make our tree pretty.

     Mrs. Chatterbox once had a crazy aunt who one year took a piece of plywood, nailed roller skates to it and used it as a Christmas tree platform. The decorated tree was kept in the garage under a tarp and on December 1^st she’d kick it in from the garage and roll it into position in the living room. A week after Christmas she’d roll it back to the garage and throw the tarp back over it. Mrs. Chatterbox’s crazy aunt is starting to seem like a genius.

     An hour ago Mrs. Chatterbox, who’s far more organized than I am, asked me what I wanted for New Years Day dinner. I’m still stuffed from the delicious Christmas prime rib, and we’ve yet to polish off the Honey Baked ham we enjoyed on Christmas Eve. There’s also platters of Mrs. Chatterbox’s incredible Christmas cookies scattered about requiring my attention. But back to the problem of what to eat on New Years Day.

     We’re not adventuresome like Anthony Bourdain, not interested in nibbling on sloth rectum fried on sticks, but it does seem like we’ve eaten our way through most of the traditional dishes: pork, turkey, chicken, etc. But we’ve never had them altogether. “I blurted out, “What about a turducken?”

     “Turducken?” she said.

     “Yeah. You know, a turkey breast stuffed with a duck that’s been stuffed with a

chicken. And I think the chicken is then stuffed with pork dressing.”

     She wrinkled her nose. “I know what it is. That’s what you want?”

     Turducken was something I’d wanted to scratch off my bucket list, that and roast beast from Whoville, hand carved by the Grinch.

     I nodded and Mrs. Chatterbox is determined to procure me a turducken. That woman spoils me terribly. Incidentally, I was thin when we met.

      “Be sure it’s a free range turducken,” I joked. She didn’t smile.

     At the moment she’s making phone calls to local grocery stores and butchers, but this year turduckens are rare as chupacabras. Mrs. Chatterbox is no quitter and she’ll make this thing herself if need be, which makes me feel guilty requesting it.

     Since I’ve unwittingly put my wife to so much trouble, I ask you, my friends and readers, have you ever had a turducken? Was it any good? What did you pay for it, and was it worth the price? Let me know as quickly as you can or New Years Eve feathers will be flying as I help my wife pound a chicken and a duck into a turkey.