Lard? - Yes I Cook With Lard!

So many people are surprised when they find this out! My neighbors, the people that I used to work with - even my brother! Its kind of what I'm used to because its what my mother used when she cooked. Of course my mother was born and raised in the south and that is what they used and most of the people I know have relatives from the south or are from the south themselves. Its not that the people I know don't know what lard is - its just that they are surprised that I use it for cooking. In fact some didn't even know that it was still available at the grocery store. Now I do most of my grocery shopping at the Shoprite and they do indeed still sell lard. (Its located near the butter.)


Now I know that there are (more healthy) alternatives to using lard - I just haven't gotten around to using them yet. I have used Crisco and am quite fond of that butter version of the Crisco and I know that there are other things like vegetable oil, etc. But I still cook the "southern" way.

Practice Turkey?

Now bear in mind that this isn't my turkey. It's a picture I got off the Internet but it does look a lot like the one that I have.

I never really cooked a turkey before because my mother used to throw us out the kitchen when she was cooking.

So this Thanksgiving I decided to make a "practice" turkey. Simply put this means that I want to cook the turkey and see how it turns out before I "unleash" my cooking on another human being.

I have been given a lot of different advice(s) on how to cook the turkey. One woman told me that she soaks hers in water and kosher salt for 3 days before she prepares to cook her turkey.

So with my limited knowledge I can say that one of the best (and smartest) things that I did was to buy the turkey well before Thanksgiving Day where it sat in the freezer until Sunday and then put in the refridgerator to thaw. It's now the day before Thanksgiving and the turkey has been rinsed and cleaned and soaking in salt water. Took me a while to figure out what to do with the giblets but I'm going to put that in the stuffing.

On an encouraging note its nice to know that there are other people like me that haven't made a turkey before. I was watching the news and they were interviewing people who were doing their last minute Thanksgiving shopping today and they had one guy that wanted to know if he could defrost a 20 pound turkey by tommorrow morning?