It was Thanksgiving of 2014. Why my Dad got it in his head to fry a turkey I’ll never know, except maybe for the fact that he was an old southerner from Texas and as we all know, people in the south love their fried foods. Dad had never done this before, and to complicate things further he wanted to fry two turkeys – one for our family and one for another family he got to know from his grief support group. Dad was 92 that year, but he was in great shape, mentally and physically. The thing about Dad was he always lassoed someone in to help him, which meant you did most of the work, and guess who he called to help that year? Yes, yes, it was me.
I’m not a big fan of fried turkeys, but someone had to help, so to get things rolling and keep everyone safe I did my part and bought a complete turkey fryer kit from Home Depot for the big day. And Dad did his part. A few days before Thanksgiving, he got his propane tank filled up and bought 5 gallons of peanut oil from Sam’s Warehouse and two fifteen-pound turkeys. I helped him defrost the turkeys and get them ready, but I have to say I didn’t have a good feeling about this little venture. I was getting bad vibes all over the place because a lot can go wrong with frying a turkey, and my dad was the king of shortcuts and doing things his way, safety be damned. I mean, what can go wrong with fire, a propane tank and 5 gallons of peanut oil, right?
Thanksgiving Day dawned bright and beautiful. We were having glorious fall weather in Colorado so the blizzard I was praying for obviously didn’t happen. According to the directions on turkey frying, it was going to take an hour or more for each turkey so Dad had everything ready to go by 10:00 am that morning. Me? I was watching him in the back yard from the safety of the kitchen. I had Mom’s old turkey roaster out, the oven on preheat, and a bottle of red wine opened on the counter. I still had serious doubts about this whole thing.
An hour and a half later, while I dallied around getting things ready for the onslaught of our big family joining us at the ol’ homeplace later that day, Dad suddenly came through the back door not looking happy at all.
“What’s the problem?” I asked him.
“That damn thing doesn’t work. It won’t get the grease hot enough because there’s a regulator on it that keeps turning the temperature down.”
I didn’t have an answer to his problem, but he did.
“We need to fire up my grill and put the pot on there. I think it will get hot enough to finish frying the turkey.”
My scary premonitions were coming true. Yes, the pot would fit on his grill, but it was on the back porch outside the kitchen. How were we going to get a pot of hot grease across the yard, up twelve steps and lifted onto the grill? And where did this “we” come from? Well, Dad had an answer to that too.
“I need your help. Together we’ll carry the pot up the steps and put it on the grill.”
Did my 92-year-old father just ask his 64-year-old daughter to help him carry over 40 pounds of hot, boiling grease across the yard and up 12 steps and LIFT it up to his grill? Yes, yes, he did.
And did I help him? Yes, yes, I did.
So, while Dad hunted up his thick leather gloves from the garage, I quickly popped the other turkey in the oven on high heat and grabbed some oven mitts. Some minutes later we were creeping across the yard with that big pot of boiling hot peanut oil between us. It was a miracle we made it. Somehow we managed to get up the steps okay, and as we counted to three we successfully lifted the pot up on the grill. Hallelujah, thank you, Jesus, and Praise the Lord!
I left Dad on the back porch with a fire extinguisher, and went back into the kitchen, drank half the bottle of wine, and prayed silently and fervently that the house wouldn’t catch on fire.
I had just come up from the basement with our spare fire extinguisher, when Dad came into the kitchen upset again.
“That damn grill isn’t getting hot enough. We need to move the pot to the kitchen stove.”
Now, by this time the bottom of that new turkey fryer pot was covered in black soot and grease. It was disgusting. And Dad’s electric stove was fairly new with Corning Ware burners. I tried to talk Dad into giving up with this frying business, but he was determined. So did the two of us move that pot of piping hot grease off the grill and into the kitchen? Yes, yes, we did. And did the stove get hotter than the turkey burner outside? No, no, it did not. Because those burners were on regulators too.
Dad persevered though, and I don’t remember how long he fried that turkey on the stove, cussin’ and fussin’ the whole time, but finally, he deemed “the damned thing” done. We took the turkey out and cautiously retraced our steps and took that pot of hot grease out the kitchen door, down the 12 porch steps and to the backyard.
While Dad relaxed in his den in front of the TV, I drank the rest of the wine and cleaned several pounds of soot and grease off the stove. Then, I wrapped his fried turkey up in foil and he delivered it to his friends while I prayed they wouldn’t get food poisoning. It was definitely a day for wine, thanksgiving and prayer.
The turkey in the oven was done by the time everyone arrived for our holiday feast, and did I have a story to tell them! And did everyone get a kick out of our frying turkey fiasco tale? Yes, yes, they did. And I could laugh with them because I was on my second bottle of wine.
The day after Thanksgiving Dad got rid of the cold peanut oil while I cleaned several more pounds of black soot and grease off the pot and put it in the storage room with the burner. Dad never mentioned frying a turkey ever again.
This past summer while we were clearing out the old homeplace and getting it ready to sell, I came across the turkey fryer kit in the storage room.
Did I laugh and cry at the same time when I saw it? Yes, yes, I did. And, did I take it home to fry again another day? Yes, yes, I did.
But I think I’ll wait until I’m 92. It’s more fun at that age!
Carolyn Anderson Jones 