Ask Slashdot: Geekiest Way To Cook a Turkey? 447
First time accepted submitter almostadnsguy writes "There seem to be a lot of ways to cook a turkey the geekiest ones are probably out of the realm of possibility for normal geeks. However, Within the limits of normal society (or outside if you wish) what is the geekiest way to do it? Do you use a special brine, cook it in an inventive way, or raise genetically modified turkeys with extra legs?"
Good question (Score:5, Funny)
I would share my method, but it only works for a spherical turkey in a vacuum.
Re: (Score:2)
Would you at least tell us for the degenerate case of a point turkey in said vacuum and 0 gravity?
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Very nice, but my method involves lasers and high explosives.
LHC Beam Dump (Score:3)
Re:Good question (Score:5, Funny)
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Mmmmnope (Score:2)
I don’t do anything geeky with the Christmas dinner (I’m Canadian, it’s our next turkey day). Wouldn’t even occur to me to try. I can’t even think of anything one could do that would qualify as geeky, but then I lack creativity.
I have a really nifty electric carving knife but that’s about it.
Sagan Nailed it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
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Carl Sagan's shopping list:
1) universe
Re:Sagan Nailed it (Score:5, Funny)
1 In the beginning God created the turkey and the cavity.
2 And the cavity was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be the oven on: and there was the oven on.
4 And God saw the oven on, that it was good: and God divided the oven from the kitchen.
5 And God called the oven Day, and the kitchen he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
6 And God said, Let there be a stuffing in the midst of the breadcrumbs, and let it divide the breadcrumbs from the breadcrumbs.
7 And God made the stuffing, and divided the breadcrumbs which were under the stuffing from the breadcrumbs which were above the stuffing: and it was so.
8 And God called the stuffing Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
9 And God said, Let the breadcrumbs under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the cranberries appear: and it was so.
10 And God called the cranberries Earth; and the gathering together of the breadcrumbs called he Side dishes: and God saw that it was good.
11 And God said, Let the cranberries bring forth relish, the herb yielding asparagus, and the fruit tree yielding pie after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12 And the stuffing brought forth relish, and herb yielding asparagus after his kind, and the tree yielding pie, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
13 And the evening and the morning were the leftovers.
It's not a trick, it's just a simple trick. (Score:3)
Let Mom do it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? What self respecting geek doesn't go home to be pampered by Mom?
Re: (Score:2)
My mother's dead, you insensitive prick!
And my dad does the cooking at gramma's Thanksgiving feast because she can't get around well any more. (Actually, he's more of a waldo that gramma controls from her chair in the living room.) I generally don't venture into snow country this time of year so I mooch off the generosity of friends.
Re:Let Mom do it... (Score:5, Funny)
don't you mean 'go upstairs' ?
Get the Geekiest Meat Thermometer you can find! (Score:2)
Order Turkey Sandwich on White at Subways (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Order Turkey Sandwich on White at Subways (Score:5, Funny)
How are you keeping it lit, and where did you find rolling papers that size?
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That hurt, I am currently watching all of ST:Voyager.
But... only after you'd finished B5 and TNG, right?
Propane with propane accessories. (Score:2)
BBQ.
Bitcoins of course! (Score:5, Informative)
Turkey with vodka (Score:5, Funny)
Take the turkey.
Pour a bit of the vodka on it.
Drink a bit of the remaining vodka.
Prepare to put the turkey in the oven.
Pour some more vodka on it.
Sip some more of the remaininng vodka.
Put the burkey in the oben.
Taek anohter brink of the vokda.
Tuern om the onev at 200 degrees.
Whihle waithtng for durkey the to beacome reday, fiinsh the rest of the btotle.
Remuove teh rurheyk orfm eht oaven.
Clal am aumbuleance to treat yoru bruns.
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Take the turkey. Pour a bit of the vodka on it. Drink a bit of the remaining vodka. Prepare to put the turkey in the oven. Pour some more vodka on it. Sip some more of the remaininng vodka. Put the burkey in the oben. Taek anohter brink of the vokda. Tuern om the onev at 200 degrees. Whihle waithtng for durkey the to beacome reday, fiinsh the rest of the btotle. Remuove teh rurheyk orfm eht oaven. Clal am aumbuleance to treat yoru bruns.
I count at least two steps involving a terrible waste of vodka for no good reasons.
Why do people feel the need to sin on festive occasions??
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Well, they usually involve the mother in law in some capacity. So, yeah. ;-)
Cook it on your GPU's heatsink, running SETI@home. (Score:4, Funny)
At least that's how I'd do it
Are you cooking the turkey to eat it? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't get it.
Are you cooking the turkey to eat it? Because if you are, there's only a handful of time tested methods to do so (in the oven, on the BBQ, sometimes deep-fried in a giant vat of cooking oil or grease). I've watched a lot of cooking shows on TV and I'm by no means an "expert" on this stuff, but every time I see someone working with turkey the formula is always the same- apply heat until cooked, add something else, then consume.
So I'm really not sure what "within the limits of normal society (or outside if you wish)" means. Are you looking for an answer like "I hoist my turkeys 200ft into the air, then shoot at them with improvised rifles fashioned from recycled microwave magnetrons and a focusing coil/antenna I built in my garage"? Or are you looking for an advanced culinary technique that few people use, but can otherwise yield amazing results? That "or outside if you wish" really gets me, because I'm sure there's a civilization somewhere out there in space who cooks their turkeys by loading them into a trebuchet, setting them on fire, then launching them into a volcano where a lone volunteer must venture to retrieve the cooked bird after a set amount of time as some sort of ritual/right of passage. That's outside normal society, right?
I'm trying really hard not to say "just fucking google it", but that's the best advice I can offer. Just. Fucking. Google. It. I'm not even sure why you think most Slashdot folks would know how to cook a turkey- unless you want them to venture out of the basement and go ask their moms.
Re:Are you cooking the turkey to eat it? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Or are you looking for an advanced culinary technique that few people use"
I'd guess this. Food geekery is a valid form of geekery in itself. But you are right, it's a damn turkey.
I guess if I were really going to geek out I'd have to start with a brine Alton Brown style. Then I'd have to Sous Vide the turkey. Most people think you need a machine to do this but you can use a large pot and a candy thermometer to Sous Vide. Sous Vide is just a water bath and will get the entire turkey, dark and white, thin and thick, to exactly the correct and uniform temperature. For those not familiar you actually vac seal the food in Sous Vide so there is no exchange between the food and water, just heat.
Shortly before serving I'd heat peanut oil and cook three pounds of bacon pieces. Then I'd put the still hot turkey into the hot oil for a short time, not to cook it further but merely to brown and crisp up the skin.
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I want to watch you try to brown a whole proper Thanksgiving turkey in a few fluid ounces of pork fat. I want to do this so badly that I am willing to pay you to watch your attempt.
Where do I sign up?
Re:Are you cooking the turkey to eat it? (Score:5, Interesting)
But the geekiest turkey I ever made was from a recipe I saw on TV (which I just looked for but cannot find). The stuffing had over 10 ingredients, which of course took a long time to do. Once the bird is stuffed, you make up a paste of turmeric and some other stuff and slather it all over. Put it in the oven at 500 degrees, wait for the paste to dry, then apply more paste. Keep doing this until the bird is completely enclosed in a thick hard layer. Then let it cook until it's completely black. You then crack it open and serve. The result was excellent, but was way too much trouble to do again.
Mom's Basement (Score:2)
Mom! HEY MOM! Bring me some turkey down here! MOM!!!!!
The Large Hadron Collider (Score:2)
Does a pretty good job on the turkey but totally fucks up the stuffing.
Imploding a turkey (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Taste: E
Creativity: A
Time: A (very quick)
Overall a fun and new way to impress your friends and flatten the neighborhood.
Chemistry (Score:2, Insightful)
Cooking involves complex chemistry and physics. Learning to cook consistently good food is a very difficult, geeky achievement.
geekiest? ok.. here it goes... (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't vouch for the edibility of the finished product, but....
Take 1 frozen turkey, and remove plastic wrapping.
Place on a ceramic or glass pedistal.
Plug in your 5000v induction heater [wikipedia.org] charge controller.
Wrap a coil of 10 gauge or thicker copper wire around a large stockpot to a height suitable for the intended purpose. Remove from stockpot, and attach coil to the charge controller.
Carefully lower the coil over and around the frozen turkey, taking care to assure that the coil does not short, and does not touch the turkey.
Turn the charge controller on, and observe carefully. A mysterious orange glow eminating from the frozen turkey is normal. It may be necessary to throttle back the voltage of the induction coil to avoid incineration of the turkey. Using a frozen turkey improves chances of first time success.
Keep children, pets, and the elderly away from the induction heater at all times, and always wear appropriate protective clothing and safety goggles.
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I am missing something here. Induction heats metal so it’s great for getting a fry pan hot in a hurry. But unless the Turkey is made out of metal, I don’t see much happening here.
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A common misconception. You an induction heat a solid block of ice.
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=aLwaPP9cxT4&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DaLwaPP9cxT4 [youtube.com]
That turkey is science's bitch.
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I am not sure that the "cooked" turkey would actually be edible. The sodium brine inside most commercial holiday turkeys would almost certainly dissociate under the imposed conditions inside the turkey, and form free radicals under the imposed excitation. I doubt that an induction cooked bird would be even the slightest bit appetizing.
That wasn't the purpose of the question though. The submitter asked for the geekiest way. Not the most sensible way. :D
What I would conjecture is happening with the icecube is
As god is my witness (Score:2)
I thought turkeys could fly..........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf3mgmEdfwg [youtube.com]
What's the hottest running CPU? (Score:2)
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My favorite way (Score:4, Funny)
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Alton Brown (Score:2)
I've learned two big things over the years, both from Alton Brown, the geek god of cooking:
- A brine beats injections. I used to inject, now I brine. I don't use his brine recipe though. Mine has the usual salt and sugar, but I also use broth, some apple juice, a cayenne-based pepper sauce (Frank's, Louisiana, etc.), butter and herbs (mostly sage of course). I warm it enough to dissolve everything and get the flavors mingling, chill it, and brine the turkey fully submerged, breast-down overnight. I'm a
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http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/im-just-here-for-the-food-alton-brown/1103672180?ean=9781584795599
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/im-just-here-for-more-food-alton-brown/1102895628?ean=9781584793410
the second one gets into the the tricky art of baking, where due to chemistry and physics it really does matter what your ingredient ratios, temp, etc are
-I'm just sayin'
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You want geeky? Try frying a turkey with Alton Brown's Turkey Frying Derrick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KwGs-Lism4 [youtube.com] (see about the 13 minute mark)
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It makes good meat taste like ham.
BTW, that 155 better be Celsius. It seems high, but any other 155 (K, F, or R) would be horrid.
Then your ratios are WAY off and / or you are leaving it in the brine WAY too long.
And 155F lets it coast to 165F when rested, the FDA approved safe temperature for the white meat. I know from experience that below that the fucker is RAW.
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You're doing it wrong. It shouldn't taste any different.
"BTW, that 155 better be Celsius. It seems high, but any other 155 (K, F, or R) would be horrid."
155F for breast meat is near perfect. Cooked, but still juicy. Some people are freaked out by any hint of pink on the bones. I feel sad for them, but they could cook to 165 or 170 and probably it would not be too overcooked. 155 C would be dried out and inedible.
The Mythbusters way (Score:2)
NASA has it covered (Score:4, Informative)
If these aren't the geekiest ways to cook a a turkey, I don't know what is:
http://gizmodo.com/5962516/nasa-scientists-show-four-ways-to-cook-your-turkey
throw it up into a radar (Score:2)
May have to do it a number of times. I once did something like this on a ocean liner back in 1970s with an apple. It was at nighttime and being a teenager I found the whole vessel activities boring. Spent a lot of time outside on the deck, the portion above the bridge and above that was the antenna mast with a rotating dish (classic oval about 5 ft wide). I threw the apple into its beam and (I didn't catch it, hit the floor) when retrieved it was warm. Was going to do it again but some passenger stopped me.
A standard microwave oven is extremely geeky. (Score:2)
Flashlights? (Score:2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goWuvXz1qC4 [youtube.com]
Yes, they cook a turkey with flashlights in 2.5 hours. 6 flashlights. (not Fleshlights!).
MadCow.
Did you mean sciencey/techy way? (Score:5, Interesting)
Because I imagine "geeky" can mean much more than that. A history buff who researches the traditional cooking methods and ingredients used by the pilgrims, and then sets out to replicate it with a wild turkey that he shoots and cleans would be doing it in a geeky way. A gardening buff who dries his own herbs and spices, and makes his stuffing from scratch with the leftover rosemary bread he baked last week would be doing it in a geeky way. And, of course, the science buff who levitates his turkey with magnets and blasts it with a high powered directed energy canon (dialed down for juiciness) would also be doing it in a geeky way.
Honestly though I'd rather prefer the garden geek's turkey, though it may be too late to plant your herbs now.
To Boldly Go... (Score:2)
On my (Score:2)
Cook A Turkey Fighter Jet Style (Score:2)
One Word: (Score:2)
Turducken....
Thermite (Score:2)
Turduckenen-duckenen (Score:3, Funny)
Turduckenenduckenen (Score:5, Funny)
Vi Hart (previously featured on /.) has posted a geeky turkey video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjrI91J6jOwm [youtube.com], which I found rather amusing!
Re:Turduckenenduckenen (Score:4, Funny)
I watch Emacs Hart, you insensitive clod!
OT (Score:3, Interesting)
Now you may all ask yourself what any of this has to do with turkey, and you'd be right for asking. I wish there was a simple answer but, friends, it ain't simple. It's Thanksgiving.
Alice's Restaurant
By Arlo Guthrie
This song is called Alice's Restaurant, and it's about Alice, and the
restaurant, but Alice's Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant,
that's just the name of the song, and that's why I called the song Alice's
Restaurant.
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on
Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the
restaurant, but Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the
church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and
Fasha the dog. And livin' in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of
room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin' all that room,
seein' as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn't
have to take out their garbage for a long time.
We got up there, we found all the garbage in there, and we decided it'd be
a friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump. So
we took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VW
microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed
on toward the city dump.
Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the
dump saying, "Closed on Thanksgiving." And we had never heard of a dump
closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off
into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.
We didn't find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the
side road there was a fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the
cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile
is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we
decided to throw ours down.
That's what we did, and drove back to the church, had a thanksgiving
dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until the
next morning, when we got a phone call from officer Obie. He said, "Kid,
we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of
garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it." And
I said, "Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope
under that garbage."
After speaking to Obie for about forty-five minutes on the telephone we
finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said that we had to go down
and pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at the
police officer's station. So we got in the red VW microbus with the
shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the
police officer's station.
Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at
the police station, and the first was he could have given us a medal for
being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn't very likely, and
we didn't expect it, and the other thing was he could have bawled us out
and told us never to be see driving garbage around the vicinity again,
which is what we expected, but when we got to the police officer's station
there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was
both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said "Obie, I don't think I
can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on." He said, "Shut up, kid.
Get in the back of the patrol car."
And that's what we did, sat in the back of the patrol car and drove to the
quote Scene of the Crime unquote. I want tell you about the town of
Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where this happened here, they got three stop
Lava? (Score:2)
I'm sure a co-worker's method of cooking other meats [dolphinbayhilo.com] could be adapted to a turkey...
Biomedical Equipment Engineer Method (Score:3, Interesting)
As bored biomed-technicians in a USAF hospital, we found that on Thanksgiving, we had only frozen turkeys, as no-one had seen the need to thaw them (sigh).
Well, realizing we could reprogram a Steris steam-sterilizer to reach 300 degrees Farenheit, we cooked the turkeys in a sterilizer.
The most juicy, moist (soggy) turkey you will have ever tasted, and it takes about 90 minutes to cook *FROM FROZEN*
Two geeky turkey cooking methods I've used. (Score:5, Interesting)
The first method came about from reading that one of the reasons that it is recommended that stuffing not be cooked in the turkey is that if the stuffing is cooked to a safe temperature, the meat is badly overcooked. My solution to this? Cook the turkey (following the usual oven method) with a heat exchanger to help cook the stuffing from the inside. 8 inches of 1" copper pipe, capped at both ends and 10 feet or so of 1/4" copper tubing tightly coiled into a 2-3" coil, and soldered into holes in one of the caps on the larger pipe, and the whole thing filled with water.
The large pipe was inside the turkey, the coil outside and exposed to the ambient oven temperature. The idea was that the oven would heat the water in the coil, and convection would circulate it into the turkey, cooking the stuffing from the inside. It seemed to actually work, too. The downside is the risk that one of the solder joints would fail after the water had heated up to ~300+ F. While that didn't happen the one time I tried it, the risk lead to the device forever after being referred to as "The Turkey Rocket". PS: Don't try this for your first dinner where you're inviting your parents and your girlfriends parents over. You might not survive. :)
Method #2 is a more recent method -- Sous vide cooking. You can't do a whole turkey, and skin of any kind is a bit of a lost cause, but skinless turkey breasts or drumsticks cooked at ~140F for 10 to 12 hours are amazing. More moist and tender than brined, and no risk of being too salty. And with wires everywhere, and an electronically controlled thermometer and heater, cooking doesn't get any geekier.
grnbrg
PS: If you're oven cooking, look up brining. It's easy, and makes a huge difference.
parallel processing (Score:3)
some preprocessing:
- download latest linux kernel source
- make [x]config
then in parallel:
- make bzImage modules install
- drive to boston market and buy a cooked turkey
when you return from the long take-out line at the restaurant, the kernel build will probably be done.
then, in parallel:
- reboot to new kernel
- consume turkey and its various 'modules'
I'm pretty sure... (Score:4, Informative)
There are also geeky ways to prepare the whole thanksgiving dinner
With Solar Power Of Course! (Score:3)
Nobody has ever used a Solar Oven before?
http://www.amazon.com/Sun-Oven-GLOBAL-SUN-OVEN/dp/B00286KQ1W [amazon.com]
Might need 2 days to get it done.
The Shatner Way, of course (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYkRF_FmD40 [youtube.com]
William Shatner & State Farm® present "Eat, Fry, Love," a turkey fryer fire cautionary tale
Get a Weber Smokey Mountain Smoker (Score:4, Interesting)
Add an ATC (automatic temperature control). This will allow you to set it for precise, unattended low and slow cooking.
Better still, get one with wifi and an internet server like the Stoker Power Draft from rocksbarbque.com. (no affiliation, but I do own one).
You can check and adjust your meat and fire temperatures from inside your home on wifi or remotely via the internet on your smartphone or computer.
It can even email you, or serve twitter updates. Run it with dyndns.org, and give your buddies a simple URL to monitor your cook as well.
Then install Stokerlog to your system, so that you can graph meat and fire temperatures and share temperature graphs with your geeky buddies on the bbq forums.
Use a digital camera and take pictures of the smoke ring (smoke penetration) on a slice of meat. Share it on your favorite photo sharing site.
Lastly, get farkles like an instant read thermometer, (I like the Thermapen), and measure the precise temperature of the meat everywhere on the bird.
The satisfaction, apart from the eating, is taking a stone age process; barbeque; and bringing it into the internet age.
I don't know if you could get geekier than that...
Slashdot style. (Score:4, Funny)
First you get a beowulf cluster of turkeys.
Then you place a naked and petrified Natalie Portman above the turkeys, and you pour hot grits all over her, letting the grits fall on the turkeys, slow cooking them with their transferred heat.
If you find the turkey's aren't cooking fast enough, you add the sonic energy from screaming, "OMG ponies!" to the process, hopefully speeding it up an uncountable number of femtoseconds.
When Netcraft confirms that all other forms of turkey cooking are dying, you dispense the entire Beowulf cluster of turkeys into a series of (feeding) tubes.
Before eating, you praise technology by reading the latest F*cking Article on Slashdot, and ban any insensitive clods to the neighbors.
Then you eat the turkeys before they can move to Soviet Russia and eat you.
Re:why (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Step 2: Create startup with Elon Musk or Richard Branson, to launch turkey into the heart of the sun.
We cannot break bread with you... (Score:5, Funny)
You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans, and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the road sides, you will play golf, and enjoy hot hors d'oeuvres. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They have said, "Do not trust the Pilgrims, especially Sarah Miller."..
And for all these reasons I have decided to scalp you and burn your village to the ground.
Re: (Score:3)
So when do we light the bonfire and burn the heathen Pilgrims?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:why (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people feel the need to extend their geek persona into everything (including family stuff).
Personally I'm not so inclined. Christmas (I'm Canadian so that's our next turkey day) and (our) thanksgiving are occasions when I like to put down the tech and spend the day hanging out at my mothers place with family. But I guess if someone wants to make an arduino controlled stuffing management system or something, to each their own!
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The right way for geeks to celebrate christmas or thanksgiving day is to not celebrate them at all. Geeks are supposed to be smart enough to not believe in imaginary friends in the sky and to not celebrate the biggest genocide in history eating turkey.
Re:why (Score:5, Funny)
The right way for geeks to celebrate christmas or thanksgiving day is to not celebrate them at all. Geeks are supposed to be smart enough to not believe in imaginary friends in the sky and to not celebrate the biggest genocide in history eating turkey.
Fun at parties, are you?
Harvest festival. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a harvest festival. The genocide was incidental.
Re:Harvest festival. (Score:5, Funny)
It's a harvest festival. The genocide was incidental.
The current term is 'collateral damage'. :D
Re: (Score:2)
The right way for geeks to celebrate christmas or thanksgiving day is to not celebrate them at all. Geeks are supposed to be smart enough to not believe in imaginary friends in the sky and to not celebrate the biggest genocide in history eating turkey.
Speak for yourself. Not being American we don't do the whole Thanksgiving thing, but Christmas and Easter we do. Our Christmas and Easter celebrations have absolutely zero to do with religion, and are instead basically an excuse for the family to gather together and have a good meal and a drink or three.
Re:why (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think you quite understand. They're not religious holidays. They are recognition of the passing of the seasons and the cycle of life. And yes, there may have been multiple deities involved so I suppose you could consider religious in some fashion. But not in the modern sense of Christianity. These holidays were already being celebrated before Christianity and those trying to show folks "the way" incorporated these celebrations to do so as the local population weren't going to give them up. Best to co-op them and basically Christians said: "this holiday means this" where "this" conveniently tied into the whole that was being preached.
Don't mean to offend anyone, Christians or not, but let's recognize that these holidays have been around for a long long time. Longer than Christianity. (Note, not talking about Thanksgiving, as that is not a "religious" holiday although the celebration of a good years harvest goes back many, many years.) This was directed at the comments concerning Christmas and Easter.
Re:why (Score:5, Interesting)
Slowly but tirelessly, the fashion industry struggles to manipulate perhaps the last stronghold of purely rational, socially unaware people: the technically-minded. By trying to play on the reader's insecurity, they hope to drum up a desire to make the reader purchase relevant goods. This is the true cost of the passing of Slashdot to a larger commercial entity.
Re: (Score:3)
Why not? (Score:5, Funny)
Hang it above my EICO HF-87 vacuum tube amp and play the LA Phil recording of the music from Star Wars *real loud* Trick will be to catch the drippings so that they don't gum up the EL-34 / 6CA7 tubes. Good thing my AR turntable and HF-85 preamp are well away from the power amp. The result is the clearest sounding turkey possible.
Re:why (Score:4, Insightful)
The science of cooking would be chemistry and food chemistry is every bit as geeky as electronics hacking these days.
Re: (Score:3)
Molecular gastronomy, digitally controlled immersion cooking, air-cannon impact tenderization...
Cooking is every bit as geeky as bits of circuitry.
Re:why (Score:5, Funny)
Well, the *nerdiest* way to cook turkey is to wait in your mom's basement until it is done.
Re:Why not SPARE the turkey (and yourself) (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you seen a commercial turkey farm? They shovel the dead out daily - it's like something from the Matrix. Do you really want to eat that?
FUCK YEA! Turkey is so yummy.
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YES! Have you tasted a dead turkey?
Re:Why not SPARE the turkey (and yourself) (Score:5, Interesting)
Dunno what options their are down there, but here in Canada lots of places where you can get a free range turkey.
Funny story: first year I did this I placed my order for 2 turkeys (one for thanksgiving and one for Christmas). Picked up the one for thanksgiving and was great, just the right size. Picked up the one for Christmas and it was huge! Like a complete idiot I asked why this one was so much bigger than the first one, to which the farmer replied of course that "it grew..". Kinda funny what a life time of buying stuff from grocery stores does to your brain.
Tofurkey (Score:3)
Yes, it's geeky - it's an artificial imitation vaguely-turkey-like product that can only exist because of a combination of complex technologies (including the transportation networks that get the things to the store, and the marketing processes that make it possible to make enough Tofurkey to be profitable.)
And ok, it doesn't taste quite like the real thing, and I'm not actually going to bother. Traditional American Thanksgiving feasts have enough non-meat dishes that you can really just skip the actual tu
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Ahh yes, nothing tastier than stalking and killing a turkey with your bare hands and teeth. Their fear is the best seasoning.
Re:Why not SPARE the turkey (and yourself) (Score:4, Insightful)
You're absolutely right. That's why many choose to do the humane thing and hunt them instead.
Only problem is the intelligence of the average turkey is greater than the intelligence of many of the hunters.
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Turkey Breast with Coffee Marinade:
Marinde:
1 hot chilli finely chopped (leave the seeds in preferrably).
1 small onion, finely diced.
2 cloves garlic, minced.
1 teaspoon olive oil.
1/2 teaspoon coffee grounds.
1/2 Teaspoon sea salt.
1/2 Teaspoon crushed red pepper.
1 shot of esspresso coffee.
dash of Worcestershire sauce.
dash of balsamic vinegar.
heat the olive oil in a saucepan.
Add the chilli onion and garlic and saute for 3 minutes or until the onions and chilli soften.
Add the coffee grounds,