Thanksgiving 2010

‎It was 38 degrees and raining in St. Peters on Wednesday, November 24 ,(2 inches since 3:00AM) when I put our 14 lb. turkey in the smoker on the deck (protected from the rain by a tarp overhead). We were promised a high of 50 with rain most of day, low of 34 that night. Predicted high of 39 Thanksgiving day falling to 30 by 4:00PM with wintry mix (for all my friends in Sugar Land, TX that is freezing rain, sleet, snow) then falling to 20 Thanksgiving night. If it were 5 degrees cooler today, we could have had over 2 ft. snow on the ground.

At 2:30 PM it was 40 degrees outside and very little rain. It had rained about 2.5 inches since 3:00AM. The turkey had now been in the smoker for over 5 hours. The internal temperature of the turkey was 156 degrees, and needed to get to at least 175. I used a Brinkman Water Smoker with an electric burner. Here is a good website with tips for smoking a turkey. The smoking chips that I used was pecan chips. I have a Smart BBQ wireless thermometer model WEC-1215 that allows me to have the sensor probe in the meat and have the remote display near me inside. My remote thermometer came from Sears but it can be found on eBay. It shows the current meat temperature and will beep when the proper temperature has been reached. You can see the thermometer in the attached photo. For the photo the remote display is siting in the sensor cradle.

At 8:30 PM, the beeping of the Smart BBQ thermometer told me that the turkey was done for a total of 11 hours in the smoker. Typically it takes 30 minutes per pound, so for a 14 pound turkey, it should have been done in just over 7 hours. But not in 38-49 degree weather. It did finally get to a high of 49 at 2:40 PM. But at 8:30 PM it was 48 degrees and falling with heavy rain again. Total of 2.7 inches since 3:00 AM. It looked like it was going to rain through the much of the night and into Thanksgiving day and change to freezing rain about 2:00 PM. Looking at radar shows continuous rain bands coming up from the southwest. I checked the rain gauge just before we turned in for the night and it measured 3 inches and was still raining. Just thankful that all this rain was liquid and not 36 inches of snow.

While I was taking care of smoking our Thanksgiving turkey and shopping and other outside errands for Pat, she was busy baking and cooking for tomorrow's Thanksgiving feast. I also drove another Senior Citizen for her last minute Thanksgiving shopping via the Independent Transportation Network of St. Charles County that Pat & I both do volunteer driving for: ITNStCharles. Pat baked two pecan pies, one chocolate pie (plus another chocolate pie Tuesday), one pumpkin pie and a pumpkin pudding (for our granddaughter who is allergic to gluten and can't eat pies with a crust). She also prepared a big batch of cornbread dressing, sweet potato casserole, two dozen deviled egg halves. Most of her cooking was finished but she still had some to do Thanksgiving day when our daughter came over early for both of them to complete the Thanksgiving Meal preparations. With our daughter, our son-in-law with the three grandchildren, our son and a young mother and her daughter from our church we had ten around the table tomorrow. We have a lot to praise God and give thanks for.

By Thanksgiving morning it was 34 degrees and had rained over 4 inches in the past 24 hours.

The turkey had been in an ice chest overnight that was kept cold by two milk jugs of ice. It was now time to carve the bird for the the Thanksgiving meal.

Pat had made a white board with things that we were all thankful for.At about noon I looked out on the deck and could see that freezing rain had began to fall. But we were warm inside. I had a good fire in the fireplace.

We all gathered at the table for a picture before we went to the kitchen for the feast that was now set out on the island counter. Seated around the table starting from the left are Mary and her daughter, Arianna (friends from our church); our granddaughters: Alex and Jessica, our son Jeff, Pat;,our son-in-law John, daughter Jennifer, grandson Jacob and me at the end of the circle on the right.

Everyone had a good time that afternoon playing board games and playing with Wii on the downstairs TV. The freezing rain had stopped by about 4:00 PM with very little accumulation. But when we watched the news we could see that it had snowed across the Missouri River to the east of us in St. Louis County. Our low temperature on Thanksgiving night was 22 degrees. We enjoyed a post from a Facebook friend that lived in the city of St. Louis, about 40 miles east of St. Peters. "Tuesday it was near 70, Wednesday it started out warm and got colder as the day went along. Today it is snowing! That's St. Louis for you! Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Yes, it was a very happy Thanksgiving.