The Cover Made Me Do It (Patricia Potter)

I had an entirely different blog in mind until I read Maggie’s Tofurkey piece.
After my grin faded away, I decided I would make my own confession.
The turkey she saved might be in my fridge.

I start by saying this has not been a good month professionally. I am losing an editor I love to another job. And Monday I received a copy of my new cover (April). I opened it, and horror! It’s – you know – the kind of career-ending cover. My agent’s opinion: it’s a candidate for the Worse Cover Ever Hall of Fame.

The problem was not the publisher not trying. Then I could rail and rage, but part of it was my fault. The cover was a painting by a famous Scottish painter who had done a fantastic job on my last cover. My editor sent me a sketch a month ago, but my AOL would not open it. I went on faith. Big mistake.

So everyone – my agent, my editor and me --spent Tuesday and Wednesday rushing around to see what could be done. At this point, though, it is difficult and expensive to change a cover.
I became frustrated.
When I get frustrated, I become compulsive.

This time I became compulsive about turkeys.
Since I am single with only three critters as dependents, some other member of the family always hosts Thanksgiving dinner. They have family coming from near and far to help with the preparation. But I truly love turkey, and I never cook one just for me. I mean who can eat a complete turkey by oneself?
But I also love leftovers. I especially love leftover turkey sandwiches. Huge big chunks of meat, not the overly processed kind found in the deli.

So four years ago, I discovered smoked turkeys at my favorite barbecue restaurant. They smoke them only at Thanksgiving. They are amazingly inexpensive and pure succulent delight. So for years, I quietly bought a smoked turkey, gorged for three, four, five days, made a pot of soup, made my mom turkey sandwiches which she loves, and shared some of the remainder with the aforementioned critters who were more than willing to indulge in my guilty pleasure.

I ordered my smoked turkey two weeks in advance and picked it up Tuesday. A whole smoked turkey just for me. Well, me and my mom and the dogs. Days and days of turkey sandwiches. I gorged on Tuesday and Wednesday, sliced some meat for future sandwiches and started preparations to make a pot of soup. But something was nagging me as I started my soup. I began to wonder whether one turkey was enough. That compulsive gene again. If one turkey was wonderful, two would be better.

And those smoked turkeys were only available once a year.
More turkey, more sandwiches. More soup.
How better to soothe a cover disaster?

So I trotted off the barbeque place and asked whether they had any extras. They never do.
They did. Two.

I thought for a moment. My once-a- week housekeeper was cleaning my house and she’d mentioned several days earlier she was short of money. I was pretty sure she was going to use that day’s salary on groceries for Thanksgiving. By golly, I would get one of those wonderful smoked turkeys for her. But when I drove back home, I thought maybe, perhaps, I should have asked her first. So I went inside and asked if she had done anything about a turkey. She gave me the broadest, proudest smile and said she had found a 21-pound turkey for practically nothing. I said nothing about that third turkey in the trunk.

I now had three smoked Thanksgiving turkeys at five p.m. on Wednesday evening, and I was due for my evening visit to Mom’s nursing home. My mother and I had planned to have Thanksgiving dinner at my niece’s who, I knew, had already bought a turkey her brother planned to deep fry, as well as a turkey breast to be roasted. Didn’t need more turkey. It was too late to find anyone to donate it to.

Nothing to do but make more soup. And so make soup I did upon return from the nursing home. All night. A frenzy of soup making with mushrooms, onions, wild rice and squishy tubes of oregano and parsley. Two huge kettles of soup. My freezer soon had no more room, and I still had platters and platters of turkey in the fridge section.

Drugged from lack of sleep, I went to Thanksgiving dinner the next day. My niece wanted to know whether I wanted to take any leftovers home. I declined politely, not admitting I had a fridge bulging with turkey.

I now have forty pounds of smoked turkey and turkey soup. Enough, I think, for the next year. Maybe for the next two.
And still a terrible cover.

Even worse, Maggie made me feel very, very guilty about my gluttony.
She cooks a tofurkey and here . . . well, I am awash with turkey.

Anyone want to visit? I have turkey, turkey hash, turkey pie. Turkey soup. Lots and lots of it.

I am only mildly comforted that I have an excuse. My cover made me do it. Gobble. Gobble.