A Total Turkey

Well, I received some big news yesterday... I have been designated "Cook of the Thanksgiving Turkey" for dinner at my mother-in-law's. Oh. My. Gosh.

When I signed up for this whole marriage thing, I knew we would encounter some tricky things in our first year... I assumed they would be things like:

1. Brandon likes his socks folded in half, I put one inside the other like a normal person. Since I'm the one doing the laundry, they go the normal way... I win. (What really happened: My husband is very smart and knows when to pick his battles, he conceded the sock thing to me so I promised to always do the laundry... Technically I think that may make him the winner, but if I'm not the winner it doesn't count.)

2. I'm a little obsessive compulsive (Major understatement, I'm virtually psycho OCD) about the arrangement of pretty much everything - which way the pot handles face, how the hammers in the junk drawer should go from biggest to smallest, that the remote always goes back in the drawer when you are done with it, our closet is color coded and I own AND USE a folding board to fold my t-shirts (Told you, p-s-y-c-h-o). Brandon is very tidy as well, but he doesn't always see the point in following all of my obscure rules. So far, we've been really good about compromising and trying to meet in the middle!

3. Sharing holidays. Always a tough one, especially the first year... my family lives 2.5 hours away so it's impossible to see both sides in one day. I would normally suggest some system - like if we go to my family's on Thanksgiving, your family gets Christmas - BUUUUT my handsome husband happens to be in his first year of residency and the hospital decides our schedule so who knows if Brandon will even be around for the holidays!

...Things like that, I was prepared for. What I wasn't prepared for and definitely didn't realize was that I was signing up for was Turkey duty!! I have NO CLUE how to cook a turkey! And the fact that it's for dinner at my mother-in-law's doesn't help my state of panic!!! Ok, before I have a complete melt down I should explain... B found out yesterday that he gets Thanksgiving Day off. My family celebrates Thanksgiving at our Ranch so we would have to leave late Wednesday night when he gets off work and drive 3 hours, we'd have Thursday day there and then we'd have to make the 3 hour drive back early since he has to be back at work at 6am on Friday. It just doesn't seem very practical... So we decided we would do Thanksgiving with his family! Easy decision - yay! Then the residency called and told Brandon that as a Thanksgiving gift the hospital purchases a turkey for each resident. Somehow that little present turned into me cooking Thanksgiving dinner!! WHY IS HIS RESIDENCY SO NICE TO US??!!!

The back story to the previous back story (You still with me?), I am notorious for being a terrible cook. My grandmother's name might as well be Betty Crocker, and my mom... oh my goodness, she puts Paula Dean to shame. My mother is KNOWN for making a-mazing pies, cakes, cookies, crepes... you name it, she can make the best one you've ever tasted and it's all from scratch! I never had any reason to learn to cook because they were always cooking for me. The fact that I am not morbidly obese is seriously a miracle. Anyway, let me just tell you about how those cooking genes must have skipped a generation - As a child, I completely melted my Easy Bake Oven... I almost burnt down my first house attempting to simmer a roast (That's not a joke, I had to move all of my furniture onto my front porch for two days because it smelt like charred meat)... I once tried to make chocolate chip cookies and completely forgot flour... I had to call my kid brother to ask him how to scramble an egg (In my defense, my mom adds milk to make them more fluffy and I couldn't figure out how much milk or if it was even milk I was supposed to be adding)... When my law school study group came to my house for dinner my mom made it and drove it all the way to Norman so that I didn't attempt to cook it myself... Do I really need to go on?

I have cooked more in the last two months than the rest of my life combined and by some miracle, I have not yet ruined a single meal! I'm pretty sure it's God blessing Brandon for being such a patient and wonderful husband... because there is no way I've managed to not jack anything up on my own! Literally, every time we sit down for dinner and I take the first bite I am utterly shocked that it tastes good! I'm so surprised that I can't stop myself and with an entire mouth full I proudly proclaim, "Oh my gosh babe, this is edible!!" (and I usually take a picture of whatever the dinner is so that I can prove to my mother that I actually cooked something correctly... I am a lawyer, I'm always collecting evidence just in case!)

So, now that you know all of these wonderful insights on my cooking abilities (or lack thereof), hopefully you will have pity on my poor soul and share your wisdom on how to successfully cook a turkey. Any advice, recommendations, recipes or lists of things NOT to do would be greatly appreciated!! Just post those bad boys in the "Comments" below... or if you don't have any suggestions, just spend a few minutes in prayer for me... and maybe call a few of your friends, have them pray too. Thanks.

I really, really, REALLY don't want a Griswold moment!