We’ve just finished having Thanksgiving dinner with our friends. And, like many other families across America, we watched a bunch of TV during the day.
We started the afternoon with the Battle Turkey episode of Iron Chef. It started out innocently enough, with Chairman Kaga talking about how Americans eat turkey for holidays, including the wonderful line, “People of Japan, it is not too late for turkey with gravy.” But then they unveiled the turkeys — 12 gutted, and 12 not gutted. And then the battle began. For those of you who aren’t Iron Chef fans, perhaps one of the Iron Chef’s dishes would be sufficient to consider: turkey sashimi. I guess they don’t have salmonella in Japan (though they do have campylobacter, as I can testify from personal experience).
Our turkey was in the oven while we were watching, so after the show ended, we (which mostly means Diane) made all the side dishes and I carved the turkey (well, I attacked it with a knife. Next year, I’ll sharpen the knife first!), and we all ate a lot of good food with nice wine, then some pie for dessert.
I’d made a mistake last week and hadn’t recorded Iron Chef USA, but Sam had gotten it, so he brought the tape over, and we watched it after dinner. It was definitely the biggest turkey of the day; I’d been forewarned by the reviews in the paper and on the net, and so I wasn’t expecting much. But no amount of warning prepared me for just how over-the-top the show was, nor how silly the chefs would be while cooking, nor how little they’d take advantage of Shatner’s unique style. And I could definitely have done with less crowd noise and fewer crowd shots. On the bright side, though, the Playboy Playmate they had filling the actress slot on the judging panel had a voice and lines very reminiscent of the dubbed Japanese episodes — but she didn’t giggle enough.
So that was our Thanksgiving; I hope yours was as enjoyable. Tomorrow, I think I’m going to the Y.