Turkey Day

One of my favorite holidays has become Thanksgiving, nothing like creating an entire day around eating.  The massive amounts of food that is cooked and served at our house has become legendary.  I cooked three turkeys last year and did the same this year.  At 7:30am I started the first turkey on the smoker.  Last year I over smoked the turkey and wanted to redeem myself.  I thought if smoke was not coming out of the smoker I was not cooking it, so I kept shoving more and more wood chips into it.  Not the right way to smoke, the turkey was okay but a heavy smoke flavor.  The second turkey was baked the old fashion traditional way but this year I got a roaster on sale and put it in that to free up the oven.  The third turkey was deep fried.  I deep fried last year for the first time and it was great this year I had problems with the auto timer they put on the deep fryers and had to get a new one.  The auto timer shuts off the gas after 15 minutes unless you press a button to give another 15 minutes but, on a busy Thanksgiving day it's easy to forget about it and then your oil cools down.  I got a new one with a mechanical timer, still a pain.  It also had a stand to lower the turkey in the oil.  I tried the stand but like the bucket from my old frier and eventually put the turkey in that to finish the job.  Three turkeys done then we also had a ham, lasagna, broccoli, mac and cheese, mashed potato's, cranberries, fried squash, butternut squash soup and more that I'm surely forgetting.  We also had about 4 pies for dessert.  Yes and we still have leftovers.  I was happy about the leftovers since I usually would leave home at 4am the day after Thanksgiving to direct football but not this year and I have made up for all the turkey sandwich's I missed.
Little man seems a bit overwhelmed on Thanksgiving with all the activity in the house.  He did good but was tired by the time dinner hit the table and after eating some the trictafan kicked in and he passed out there in his chair.  Of course we did what every good parent would do and shoved a turkey leg in his hand and took a picture.  Now come my real dilemma, we took a great picture of little man just days before thanksgiving and then we took the turkey leg photo.  We are not sure which picture to use for the Jame Jack 2011 calender.  Help us pick one for the month of November, tell me which one is your favorite.  The 2011 Jame Jack calender is going to be great!

Stump

Turkey Leg