It was fairly weird, standing in the kitchen without a bunch of other people around, or a bunch of pots and bowls around, and just a lonely but beautifully browned turkey on the counter. It smelled kinda like Thanksgiving, but not exactly. Even weirder was carving it, picking the bones, setting aside the wishbone and not fighting with anyone over the crispy, only-way-to-get-it skin. Yum. I didn't eat any turkey; it's all in the freezer, neatly packaged, labeled, dated for future meals.
Tomorrow will be strange, too, as I simmer the carcass with onions, celery and carrots to produce that one of a kind broth that you can only get by simmering an authentically roasted turkey carcass. From the broth, I'll make the expected turkey noodle soup (I was wise enough to withhold from the freezer the picked white and dark meat earmarked for this) to be ladled into containers and frozen as well.
If you'd've told me it would feel like a major interruption of the time-space warp continuum to cook a turkey a week early, I'd tell you to see a shrink. But, you know what? It was weird.
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