A Cooking Demo At Williams-Sonoma

     Page One Hundred Seventy-One.
     So, long about mid-November, I got a phone call from a buddy who's a well-known and quite reputable amateur chef in town. He'd been recently contacted by the new event planner at our local Williams-Sonoma as being someone who might be able to do a cooking demo for Thanksgiving. W-S wanted to do a turkey roasting class for new brides who'd be making their first holiday turkey. It would be held on Tuesday evening of the week prior to the holiday. Or, more to the point, five days after he and I received our respective phone calls. He was unable to participate but thought that I could. Was I interested?
     I wasn't sure what to say. This presentation would be four days prior to a class on healthy eating habits that I'd be teaching to a large group of art therapists and social workers. I'd been preparing for that class almost two months and to suddenly have an additional stress the same week seemed unwise. However, I knew the exposure and experience at W-S would be great for me. Also, I love a good adventure. This seemed like an adventure second only to the expedition where they found King Kong on the remote South-Pacific island, brought him back to America where he went on a rampage and killed everybody in New York. I said yes. (Truly... I love a great adventure.)

King Kong & Fay Wray Atop The Empire State Building, 1933.

      The next day I was on the phone with this event planner, Anni-Frid, and we're talking away like old friends. Then, the day after that I was at the butcher's ordering two turkeys: one to prepare in advance and the other to demonstrate the preparation on (a sort of before and after thing). The butcher was a little nonplussed with me for needing the birds a few days too early for Thanksgiving, but he understood why. Also, I'm quite friendly with him and have given him a certain amount of business over the years. So he tried to be accommodating. I then proceeded to write out this new turkey roasting presentation while finishing up the healthy eating demo. All in all it was a very dysfunctional week.
      On the day of, I got the first turkey in the oven no problemo. All the preparation went really well and I was quite optimistic. When suddenly, (did you anticipate the "when suddenly" phrase?) Williams-Sonoma began smelling an awful lot like burnt tires. I MEAN A REEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAL LOT. I promise I did everything I was supposed to. I'd used all my experience and read all directions very carefully. But no matter if I did everything perfectly, sometimes certain things just happen. It was my first time cooking with their stove, with their supplies, in their environment. That turkey was black. I mean black-black. Not pleasantly dark brown like expensive German chocolate sent by a European former roommate as a Christmas gift. Not dark-dusk, like the star-lit sky five minutes before the fireworks begin on Independence Day. Not even light black like that beautiful Ralph Lauren sweater you bought in 1985 and has faded and worn desperately but you just can't get rid of because it still drapes beautifully and also it reminds you of the long-ago moved-away friend who accompanied you when you purchased it. No. This turkey was darkest, dark black like death black. I was horrified. As were Anni-Frid and the store manager.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

      Now this all happened prior to any brides showing up. So we thought for a moment. Then I removed the turkey skin before the brides' arrival. (The meat underneath was juicy, succulent and flavorful. It just wasn't photogenic.) And during the class I told the students what happened and used it as a teaching experience. In reality, these things do happen, especially in new environments. This is why you ALWAYS rehearse a new food prior to serving it to company and why you ALWAYS try out new cooking supplies and so forth in advance. I wasn't familiar with the supplies or oven and ovens do cook differently. They really do. And this is what happens.
     After the class was over Anni-Frid hugged me and told me what a great job I did.  Everybody was happy and I took some turkey home in a doggy bag and ate it over the next few days. They've already booked me for my next demo, in January.