Brian Bahouth

Turkey Party

audio by Brian Bahouth

Before I started Turkey Party on Wheels I worked in a commercial printing plant in Stead, Nevada, just a few miles north of Reno. My factory produced more column inches of four color newsprint circulars than any facility in the world. We printed ad inserts for papers across the westt--Seattle, Denver, Los Angeles, everywhere. I was the assistant compliance manager for Toluene recovery and processing, a big job. We used millions of gallons of the solvent Toluene to rinse huge printing screens of one image and ready them for the next. About a year after we moved to Reno this reporter from the New York Times called me directly and said he was doing a story on the commercial printing industry. He didn’t sound like he was digging for anything bad necessarily, he just wanted to confirm the data I provided for the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory. He wanted to verify we actually released a half a million pounds of Toluene into the atmosphere the previous year and that I was the person who compiled the information. I should have asked him if he had spoken to the people in the home office, but like an idiot I bragged yes, we ran a tight plant and that 500,000 pounds was an impressively small amount considering the toxic release made up only two percent of all the Toluene on site.

When the article was published the top brass back in Chicago were furious, and I was the first person fired when the economy turned sour. That’s when I started Turkey Party on Wheels. The concept came to me from a television show on the Outdoor Channel about fishing off the Florida Keys. These guys would clean and fry your catch back at the pier with all the fixins. So I tweaked the idea to capitalize on a deep fried turkey craze and wrote up a business plan for a zero-interest stimulus loan from the US government to stake my new career frying turkeys. I bought a Wells Cargo trailer tricked out with an oven, stove-top, refrigerator, sink, silverware, dishes, everything. Most important, I got a pair of Bayou Classic 32-quart Outdoor Turkey Fryer Kits, just like the guys on TV. I did my first job a couple nights ago, and if I really wanted to get paid in full I could take my client to small claims court, but I learned a lot.

My counselor at the business development center recommended me to the local chapter of the National Rifle Association, and they hired my company to cater their semi-annual awards banquet. The president of the club was a real prick. He was tall and trim and squinted down at me through yellow tinted shooting glasses. His detailed timeline of events was almost as annoying as his super squared-away hair cut and high-tech cell phone holster. Two weeks in advance he dropped off the frozen wild turkeys and hand delivered the agenda. Standing in my driveway, he went on and on about the “ritualistic importance of good timing.” And, according to plan, the cheese platter and elk sausage puff pastries were circulating at 4:45. The awards and honors ceremony began at five o’clock on the dot, and while target champions were crowned, I assembled the buffet. By the time they handed out youth citations, the green beans and shallots were ready, hot and perfectly tender in a covered chafing dish. The giant bowl of delicate micro greens was full and covered in cling wrap, ready to be fluffed. Twenty aluminum crocks of varying sizes were nicely arrayed in ice around the lettuce, each brimming with every kind of fresh salad topping and four homemade dressings to boot.

I was so busy getting everything in place on time I forgot how bad I felt about bringing my wife all the way out to Reno, buying an over-priced house in a soulless gated community, and promptly losing my job. She never blamed me for anything, but I knew how disappointed she was and how much she missed her sisters and her old job teaching third grade and our slummy Cleveland duplex. I made one last check to make sure the crusty dinner rolls and butter were on the line under clean linen napkins and the caramel bread pudding and roasted potato wedges were warming in the oven. The centerpiece of the meal was a pair of twenty-pound deep fried wild turkeys shot by the president himself at a private Texas hunting lodge.

I admit I fucked up. I should have started thawing the turkeys at least three days ahead of time but I spaced it and only took them out of the freezer the night before. They were too big for my microwave, so I soaked them in warm water right up until 4:30 when they absolutely had to go into the fryer to meet a hard six o’clock deadline. At six sharp the president would conclude the awards program and discharge a small ceremonial canon as a salute to the Second Amendment, and then everyone would eat. The president said he wanted the smell of gunpowder to mingle with the taste of food.

The turkeys weighed twenty pounds each and had to cook for three minutes per pound plus fifteen for good measure. I pulled the birds from the water at 4:30 and dried them inside and out. The centers were still frozen solid. I adjusted as any professional would and cranked up the oil temperature a little past the recommended 350 degrees to around 400, just before the oil began to smoke. Behind the president’s custom “Robert Siegel” house, on an immaculate walled-in lawn, a talkative group of fifty were mingling and warming up their appetites, when the first turkey hit the boiling peanut oil.

I had seen videos on YouTube of totally frozen turkeys actually exploding when they hit hot oil. No matter, wearing an asbestos mitt and fire proof apron, I held the partially frozen bird on a six inch metal hook and lowered it into the fryer super slow, and indeed, a loud wicked spattering began when the frozen core contacted hot fat. Bubbling oil gushed from the turkey’s neck and swelled in the pot. You can’t just drop a turkey into a fryer like a basket of French fries or cheese sticks, even if it’s not frozen. The furious, loud interaction of ice and oil turned heads and ruined conversations for several minutes. The sustained lewd noise prompted a concerned visit from the boss himself to make sure everything was “under control.”

When the first bird was finally submersed and quiet, my anxiety about dunking the second turned to anger over our new house in the hulking Saddle Horn master planned community. We owned our home back in Cleveland outright and sold it for the down payment on a so-called custom house in Saddle Horn. As I lowered the second turkey, the ugly spattering began again, and I could feel a wave of violent wordless thoughts turn my head and ears bright red. We could try and sell the house, but half the development was vacant. The golf course was closed and over-grown. We couldn’t sell it if we wanted to. I was furious I had to deep fat fry frozen turkeys to make payments on a house not worth half what I owed on it.

By the time I had two thirds of the second carcass into the fryer it was clear there was way too much oil in the pot. I thought I measured it out for the volume of the bird but apparently I got it wrong. I tried to eyeball if the bird would fit without overflowing the kettle and I knew it was going to be close, but it didn’t matter. The turkey was going in the oil. I was in a frenzy to get the meat on the buffet and money in the bank and my mortgage paid and to somehow ease the poisonous stress behind my wife’s female pattern baldness.

The kamikaze turkey was almost all the way under when a little fat bubbled over the rim and down the side of the kettle. Vaporized oil met flame, and a woofing fireball of burning gas enveloped the fryer. I closed my eyes; heat scalded my face; the flash lit up my lids. Curls of smoke from my eyebrows floated in the air. A small puddle of oil burned a hole in the grass at my feet. I had to let go of the bird and stand back. The bobbing spattering turkey pushed tiny waves of peanut fat over the side. The pot woofed another huge fireball, and I ran for the extinguisher. I broke the seal and pulled the pin and pointed the nozzle at the fryer. The president had his back to me and was speaking to the gathering through a microphone. I was shocked no one noticed the chaos. I waited for another flaming gas ball to discharge the fire extinguisher and end the party, but the explosion never came. The oil level stabilized an inch or so from the rim.

With the smell of frying turkey meat in my nostrils I came a little closer to taking responsibility for my mistakes. By the time I had to serve the birds, I decided we were going to declare bankruptcy and move back to Ohio, get out from under my bad decisions and just start over. I pulled the first bird from the oil and set it to rest on wads of paper towels. The outside looked perfect, crispy, rich mahogany brown. I put each turkey on a platter and surrounded them with golden roasted potato wedges, flaky and hot. The canon fired. I uncovered the buffet and began carving the first turkey. I cut into a breast and came away with a perfectly done filet, white and juicy. Yes. The second piece looked good too. A young woman approached, plate extended. I smiled at her and the president and his wife, and they all smiled back. The third slice was half translucent red, part raw. That’s when I noticed a bloody juice running from the neck and ass of each bird. The pooling liquid made the potatoes soggy and biologically dangerous.

I offered apologies to the people in line, pulled the turkeys from the buffet, and had a short, frank conversation with a very angry president. The birds went back in the oil and emerged thirty minutes later well cooked but without potatoes. After dinner, the president followed me around for several hellish minutes telling me specifically why he wouldn’t pay the bill in full; but while I finished cooking the turkeys people had a pleasantly short time to enjoy salads and rolls and more drinks. And when the birds were finally ready, they ate all the green beans and almost finished both turkeys. The caramel bread pudding with real whipped cream and chocolate sauce was a smash hit too. A woman interrupted the president’s tirade to ask for my gorgonzola salad dressing recipe. Clearly he was full of shit; but I wasn’t about to argue. I apologized for letting him down and told him I didn’t care about the money. While we shook hands, I tried my best to make him smile. For the first time I was sure Turkey Party on Wheels was going to make it. I knew I’d do better at the Elk’s lodge.