Tag Archives: The Scatters

Freeze: We have a meat emergency

Turkey Lurkey is on the job in the "Chicken Little" book I had as a kid. It's blurry because I once left it in the rain. Pictures by Marjorie Hartwell. Thank you Whitman Publishing Company for some good times growing up.

By Laura Grimes

If you’re wondering about Mr. Scatter, he’s been busy with paying gigs so we can afford all this meat we’re cooking for Thanksgiving. If you read the last post, you know by now that even though most of us in the family are vegetarians, somehow we’re cooking both a whole chicken and a turkey breast.

OK. OK. No somehow about it. I’ll admit it. It’s all because I’m an advice column failure.

But forget that for a moment because we have an emergency. The meat in our freezer is multiplying. And we don’t even have the whole chicken or the turkey breast yet.

The freezer already contains several kinds of elk meat and antelope sausage (which Mr. Scatter fondly keeps calling “gazelle”), which we got in exchange for pickles. And now — hold your breath — we have a giant turkey. More precisely, we have 21.12 pounds of bird, or $35.69 worth. It was FREE.

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Meat: It’s what’s for dinner

"The Order of Good Cheer" by Charles William Jefferys, 1606/Wikimedia Commons

By Laura Grimes

My mom’s coming for Thanksgiving. I’m pretty excited. I’ve already talked her into making pie (it didn’t take much).

We have to get a turkey breast just for her, though. None of the four Scatterers eats turkey. We had a long conversation at dinner one night just to solve what to do about meat for Thanksgiving. The one carnivore in the house, the Large Large Smelly Boy, said he didn’t like white meat, and he wasn’t interested in turkey legs or thighs. He requested chicken. We dreamed up cooking a whole chicken, which is not a small thing in the Scatter house. We were relieved to have a plan, and even kind of excited. We could make stock, just like we used to. We could freeze it. We could make all kinds of things for the Large LSB. Boy, that chicken decided it. We were going to get the whole house cooking! Bring on Thanksgiving! Could it come sooner?

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