Turkey Carcass Guilt

Turkey Carcass Guilt is my Thanksgiving albatross. I’ve avoided TCG in the past several years by only making a turkey breast. But this year, I cooked a whole bird, too, but in good conscience, simply could not just toss the carcass. Thusly, I had to deal with the whole soup thing.
TCG Soup requires a large pot, which takes up so much cupboard space, not everyone can validate having one. My soup pot resides in the basement. It’s a glorious old bit of banged up metal. I’ve had it almost thirty years.

It was a gift from Priscilla McCabe, my long-ago next door neighbor. At 90, she was leaving her home and in the process of disposing of its contents, called me over to choose one thing to remember her by. I took her soup pot.
As my TCG Soup simmered, the steamy aroma of turkey and vegetables wafted from beneath the ill-fitting lid. I thought about Priscilla and the women of long-ago generations who knew how to stretch a broth to feed a family, especially during some very lean times in America’s history.
I’m lucky. MyTCGS was hearty. Guilt may have been my impetus, but there is nothing so sustaining as a bowl of soup.

Do you have a kinder, more adaptable friend in the food world than soup? Who soothes you when you are ill? Who refuses to leave you when you are impoverished and stretches its resources to give you a hearty sustenance and cheer? Who warms you in the winter and cools you in the summer? Yet who also is capable of doing honor to your richest table and impressing your most demanding guest? Judith Martin (Miss Manners)

xxea
Tie One On…an apron, of course!