Turkey Report #1

So I'm attempting to cook a turkey today, because I didn't get any leftovers from last week in Ohio and because someday I'll need to know how to cook a turkey. I figured immersion was the best way to learn, so I bought an 8.6 lb turkey and it's been sitting in the fridge thawing since... Monday? Yeah, Monday. And now it's just the turkey, the oven, and me.

As I fuss with it more this evening, I'll update you on how the cooking is proceeding. But first I leave you with this:

Raw turkeys are gross. And bewildering in their abundance of bloody cavities.

And I normally don't cook because I'm the type of person that somehow gets SOAP in the BUTTER.

Step Two!

You'd be surprised at the sorts of questions a non-cook would have about cooking a turkey. Like, "Is the meat thermometer I bought yesterday safe for oven use?" 'Cause it doesn't say that kind of thing on the thermometer packaging. Luckily, the internet exists to provide images of "oven-safe thermometers," and mine happens to look just like the pictures.

The turkey is now in the oven. 7:40pm. In three hours or so, it should be done. Hopefully I'll be awake then, and hopefully the meat thermometer is inserted correctly.

Man, I'm exhausted now.

Time for homework.

This is why you shouldn't be on the phone in grocery stores (besides the fact that it's rude).

Wow. So, 1h30 into the cooking process, I checked on the turkey and realized a few things.

1. I had "basted" the turkey beforehand with butter (and a small amount of oil), which had of course all melted off. Did I need to reapply butter? Or add oil?
Phone call #1 to my mother assured me that I did not, but that I needed to cover the breast with aluminum foil.
I do not own aluminum foil.
No worries, a quick run down to the corner store on the other side of the undergrad quad fixed this problem, except that I stayed on the phone with my mom while I was in the store, and thus didn't notice that I was purchasing plastic wrap. I got home, got off the phone, and had to turn right back around and go back down the stairs and across the street and through the undergrad dorms to the store, where the proprietor did not speak English but eventually let me leave with the box of aluminum foil, after I'd given him the plastic wrap and three quarters.

2. All that juice that's accumulating in the big scary cavern of the turkey--do I need to worry about that?
Phone call #2 to my mother assured me that I did not.

3. How do I apply this aluminum foil? And why does aluminum foil get hot SO FAST?? I tore off a small piece and attempted to "tent" it over the breast as my mom had described, only to realize that after about ten seconds the foil was too hot to touch. So I used forks to poke at the edges until I was too mad to care if it was perfect. Aluminum foil doesn't listen to me any better than cling wrap does, and cling wrap REALLY doesn't like me.

4. Instant mashed potatoes. Mmmmm.
Okay, so that's not a realization, but I did have a conversation with my mom about whether or not soy milk would work instead of regular milk, and she insisted that vanilla soy milk would be a bad idea. I'm not sure why she thought to bring this up, because I wouldn't have used vanilla soy milk anyway, but since she mentioned it I'm wondering why you couldn't. Vanilla soy milk! Mashed potatoes! Two wonderful things; shouldn't they be brought together in love and creamy harmony?

5. I haven't gotten any homework done tonight. But I have watched two episodes of the second season of Weeds.

Finale

Well. That actually wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. All told, I called my mother less than ten times. And I now have a gorgeous browned turkey sitting on the one and only counter in my teeny tiny grad student kitchen. If I can figure out how to upload pictures from my phone, I'll post them.

The last question is--do I start eating it now, or do I wait for tomorrow?

EDIT:
I did the only thing you can do when you've spent four or five hours messing with a nine-pound bird. I ate a drumstick.

I think it was the single most delicious thing I've ever eaten. Not because I'm such a fantastic cook--because I'm not--and it was a little dry on the outsides. It was so delicious because I made it. I never cook anything! Kitchens don't like me! Foil won't wrap around things for me, and soap ends up in my butter. So the fact that this drumstick is golden brown and edible--not just edible, but actually tasty--just blows my mind.

Now I want to make all sorts of things. Steaks and fancy salads and chicken cordon bleu and anything else I can think of. What do I like to eat? I'm going to make a list and then I'm going to start buying ingredients, because MAN that turkey tastes good, and I want all my food to taste like that.