Turkey (dismemberment) day.

Lewisburg.

It's turkey (pickup) day. Behold, forty pounds of turkey, dismembered:



They were live turkeys as of this morning. I picked them up from a farm just north of Orangeville, came home, and tore them into boneless bits, a la Jacques Pepin. (Worth noting - it's significantly more taxing to debone a twenty-two pound turkey than a four-pound chicken.) A few more trims, and we've got:

• Breasts for roasting - to become sandwich fillings - or for taco and pizza chorizo.
  
• Tenderloins for stir-fries.
  
• Thighs for stews and sausages.
  
• Drumsticks for soups and braises.
  
• Wings for soup.
  
• Liver for dog treats. If we weren't hosting Thanksgiving - and cooking 95% of it - I might make pate. But there ain't time enough for that.
  
• Wishbones for Thanksgiving fun.
  
• Extraneous bits for tonight's stir-fry dinner. Specifically, the muscles beneath the shoulder, that came off with the wings.
  
• Carcasses, wing tips, gizzards, and hearts for stock. With a handful of aromatics, they've given us about two gallons of rich stock for Thursday's feast.

The rest of the bird, sans what we've eaten tonight, is already in the freezer. This, of course, because I picked up our Thanksgiving bird from another farm, just to hedge my bets.

And to give us enough to eat throughout the year.

And, no, I don't roast a whole bird. Dry-brine - as stupid as that sounds - the breasts for gentle roasting. Cure and braise the leg quarters. Let the family deal with it.