The third cup

Sunday, November 23, 2003

Hi neighbors. It may not feel like it today, but it is almost turkey day! Time to break over to eggnog for the first of three holidays when it's OK to save coffee for desert instead of with the meal.

How many of you have turkey more than once a year? Not very many I'll bet. Except for those like me who have it for Christmas too.

Who can figure out ways to use all those leftovers? Even if you only cooked it once a month you would have more than a week of turkey each time.

There are not many reasons to cook as much meat as even a small turkey has. I suppose if a person had a whole lot of people coming over they would cook turkey more often.

For most of us a chicken is the right size.

If they celebrated Thanksgiving in Australia, would they bake an emu or an ostrich? Birds, particularly those that don't fly so well, have always been good food sources.

Maybe that's what happened to the dodo bird -- too much company showed up for Thanksgiving and stayed through New Years. Surely all the dodos could not have been as evolutionarily challenged as most cartoons portray them.

If they were, the scenario in the cave of our favorite caveman may have gone like this: Clovis, who had spent most of the night burning a considerable amount of the wood supply for light while trying to invent a way to throw a flaming spear without getting burned, now slept in another of his inventions -- a fern covered resting spot he called the reclining rockchair.

"Hey, Pop!" The now adolescent son of Clovis and his ever patient wife yelled at his snoring father.

The shout startled Clovis and he tumbled from his chair. His foot fell into the fire pit which now only contained smoldering charcoal. His "water shoes" invented the day before and consisting of coarse river grass dipped in tar, caught fire.

Now wide awake, he jumped to his feet and started stomping to put the fire out. His son who had learned to deal with creative accidents long ago, grabbed a gourd of water and poured it on his father's smoking footwear.

Clovis sat back down and examined his hot foot and wet shoes. "What did you want?" he asked his son.

"Mom said you used all the wood last night so you have to go get some more." "Me!" Clovis stood. "I am the hunter and protector of this family! I do not gather wood! What would the neighbors say?" His wife came back in from the creek just then with her arms full of plucked dodo birds ready to cook. "Who needs a hunter when these stupid birds practically jump into the cooking pot? What we need, is more wood." Clovis snorted. "Why do you need more wood?" His wife shook a dodo at him. "To boil water in the pot to cook roots and to make flames to roast these birds! And to make enough light in the cave tonight. Did you forget it's our turn to host the croaky party? The whole tribe will be here tonight to eat and sing." Clovis sighed then had an epiphany. "No need for more wood. I've invented the," he paused to think of an appropriate title, "the no-wood-burnlow-cookslow method of cooking." His son laughed loudly and his wife looked at him dumbfounded. He took the birds from her hands, placed them on the charcoal, covered the whole fire pit with the ferns from his chair and grinned.

"Now you go relax, and you!" he pointed at his still snickering son, "get more wood so we can have heat tonight for the croaky party." His wife thought about it and shrugged. "OK with me. What will you be doing?" Clovis leaned back on his recliner. "Inventing a better way to light this place up tonight." He picked up one of the many half-burned throwing spears, wrapped his scorched shoe around one end and nodded his head.

"When you go gather greens later, get some more of this marsh grass with that black stuff on it." He leaned over and nudged the end into the smoldering fire pit. It caught fire quickly and the tar soaked grass gave off a steady light while it burned.

"What's that?" his wife asked.

He grinned and jammed the spear's non-flaming end into a crack in the cave floor. "I'll call it the lightening rod." Until the next time friends remember; whatever your plans for turkey day, eat hearty, drive safely, and enjoy time with family and friends. Happy Thanksgiving!