Cooking with Courage

The title of this piece makes it seem as if for my Thanksgiving holiday I fed the homeless. Or did something socially-conscious and thoroughly humanitarian.

But that is hardly the case. Rather, this piece details the way in which I, for the first time in my life, assisted my father in preparing the turkey for my grossly over-fed and over-homed family. Yet, as titularly alluded, I like to think I did so in a vaguely courageous manner.

Because seeing a man cook, following the distinctly feminine decorum of the kitchen and its recipes, is like watching a bear dance to tune of an accordion-player: sure the bear can dance (albeit poorly), but eventually the foreign and seemingly cacophonous sound of the accordion will drive the bear to absolute madness such that the bear will swipe and irrevocably maim the accordion player.

Thus, on Thanksgiving afternoon, helping my dad prepare the turkey, I felt like a dancing bear. Even though preparing a turkey only takes ten minutes (heck, all your supposed to do is tie it up and rub salt and pepper on it), I grew impatient. Perhaps it was that stubborn streak of masculinity, the same shred of manhood responsible for driving men to disregard maps and instruction manuals, the same ounce of absolute idiocy that made me hate my piano teacher and scribble out ever page in my lesson-book when I was five, that made me thoroughly abhor the mere thought of following a recipe. Why the Hell should I follow the instructions of my great-grandmother? Where is the innovation in taking the directions of a woman?

So in an act of valiant defiance, an absolute re-assertion of my rights as a man, a coup-de-tat against the cult of female domesticity, a flagrant dismissal of over 70 years of family tradition, I marched into the pantry and began to plot a revolution.

I searched for weapons. Spices. Things my hick, country-bumpkin, hillbilly, Eastern-Kentucky, matriarchal-driven, Amazonian-authoratative, family could hardly imagine.

I walked out of the pantry with three containers holding respectively red-pepper, cayenne-pepper and chili-powder.

I then, in act of stoic courage reminiscent of the most heroic martyrs of all of history-Socrates, Jesus Christ, and Jan Hus-liberally applied all three to our thirteen-pound butterball turkey.

I knew not the repercussions of this most daring act. Would my family condemn me? Would I be exiled in hunger to my room? Deprived of the most excellent right to split the wish-bone? Yet I feared no punishment. For I knew I was most justified in my action. However, it would be a lie to say I was not in anyway anxious for our meal.

About three hours later, after grace was conducted by my father, we all sat down to eat.

And I'll be damned if it wasn't the most delicious turkey ever. All my family loved it. Moist. Tasty. Savory. Spicy. Tangy. Amazing. You name it.

Thus, in an act of courage I singlehandedly defeated tradition and the so-called supremacy of female cooking. Or perhaps my completely moronic masculine arrogance finally paid off in a stroke of blind-luck. Regardless, it was a indubitably terrific Thanksgiving feast.