November 23, 1998
When my wife learned a neighborhood girlfriend didn’t relish spending all day in a hot kitchen, they “pooled their resources” and invited the neighbors, too. The guest list grew to include several other couples and brothers-in-law who not only gathered around the TV to watch football, but they made sure they had a glass of Holiday Cheer in their hands.
One of them, considering himself an expert on mixed drinks, decided to supply the holiday guests with his own recipe for a Manhattan cocktail, including my wife and her girlfriend cooking the turkey. It was quite a sight to see these two young and innocent housewives, who had never had anything more than a Shirley Temple cocktail, sipping their Manhattan – through a straw, no less.
After the football fans became aware of a rising tide of giggles from the kitchen, they ignored it until there was a loud THUMP! heard, along with the delicious aromas coming from the kitchen. Immediately, the THUMP! was followed by hysterical giggles and even more clatter.
Husbands and brothers rushed to the kitchen to see what was going on. There, on the kitchen floor, were our two cooks, sitting with the 32-pound stuffed turkey which had defied their best efforts to get it out of the roasting pan and onto the serving platter. They had all fallen to the floor, aided, to some extent, by the unwieldy turkey and the heretofore unknown substance called a Manhattan.
The resourceful menfolk, no strangers to mishaps due to demon rum, picked the ladies up, along with the turkey, and pitched in to clean up the floor, then carved the turkey and helped to get the rest of the meal on the table.
The next day, somebody asked my brother how his Thanksgiving dinner was. He said, “Fine, except the turkey was drunk.”
JACK O’NEIL
Sewickley