Brine that bird

In my pre-Thanksgiving "yes I am still alive" post I mentioned that I was thinking I might finally try brining the Turkey. Well I did it, roughly following Alton Brown's method, and it was amazing. Completely worth a little effort to do it - best turkey I have ever made. One thing to note is that rather than the cooler mentioned in Brown's recipe, I found and purchased very large food grade heavy duty zip top bags. One large enough for a 16 lbs turkey and a couple gallons of brine. We brined over night because of the size of our bird, roasted for 4 pm meal and really ate a lot.

Oh and we did cook the bird grill again. It just makes it tasty all around while freeing up my oven for all kinds of other stuff (potato casserole - yum!). It isn't really all that different from roasting in the oven. Get the grill to a nice roasting temp, keep it there till the turkey is done. We don't baste, or really mess with it at all. One thing we do is roast the first hour breast down, then flip it and roast until done in the standard orientation. Flipping can be tricky - our method involves a pair of rubberized, heat proof gloves. My husband dons them, then just picks the bird up and turns it over. Done. (Uh, by the way we use a v shaped roasting rack which make that whole thing a little easier.)

Another thing I did differently this year is the dressing. I used my standard recipe but instead of casserole I used one of my dutch ovens and about 3 cups of broth. It was the best I have made yet & the closest to from the bird stuffing (the brine + grill cooking means no stuffing the bird).

Overall the food was great, it was good to have family around and it was a nice break from rehearsal. The only down side was that my general level of tiredness meant that I was falling asleep on the couch at 7 pm. Or maybe that was the wine...

Rehearsal is the work

We opened last weekend. It went well really. I was exhausted.

I arrived for preview wiped out. I haven't seen my friends in a month, never mind my family. I am FRIED. I am thinking "Why and the hell do I do this? I am killing myself. I just would really like to sit in front of the TV and drink beer for a night." Tired.

And then I go on. I am alive. Awake. Ready for more. I love this. I don't even know why - maybe I am just an attention whore (see also: has a blog) but god do I love it. Michael Caine says in his book Acting in Film "Rehearsal is the work, performance is the release." and he is so very right. I am probably paraphrasing the line (ha), and as I remember he was actually quoting someone else. But the point is solid and true (note to self: re-read book). At the end of weeks of rehearsal I am spent and can't remember why it is that I am doing this crazy crap.

And then we open, and there is the release of performing. All the work in the rehearsal pays off and you get to live in this (usually intense) moment of someone else's life. So I look for the next audition and keep going.