Turkey tragedy averted

Bill's making a dinner extravaganza for Christmas Eve with family. And that doesn't mean shortcuts.

For instance, I was all for 10-minute-prep green bean casserole. Toss together a can of beans, cream of mushroom Campbell's, and canned French's fried onions; throw in oven; bake; serve.

Bill instead dug up an Alton Brown recipe that appears to involve making, from scratch, one's own cream of mushroom soup and onion crisps. Its only shortcut is not growing the beans from seed.

When Bill roasts a turkey, which we haven't done in over a year, the process always starts with brining--soaking the carcass in a broth of beef stock, kosher salt, garlic, and spices for a couple days beforehand. Instead of making the flesh unbearably salty, like you're thinking, brining results in a tender, succulent bird.

Last night was Brining Night. From my office, I could smell the heady aroma of spices, as the broth simmered. Next, Bill carried it into the garage to cool before the soaking began.

At some point in the evening, I opened the garage door to flip on an outside light and was staggered backward by a solid wall of garlic. I could practically touch the yellow miasma that hung in front of me. I hadn't smelled anything like it since the time I made Greek cucumber dip as an easy out for one of my daughter's second-grade international festivals. (I'd grabbed a bulb of elephant garlic at the store by mistake, followed the recipe using its mammoth cloves, and none of the kids would go anywhere near it. The teachers weren't none too keen on it either. My daughter might still be in therapy over it.)

"Gee, that smells garlicky," I suggested, firmly shutting the garage door. Bill allowed as how it would get better as the broth cooled.

As the broth cooled, the stench started seeping under the garage door and slowly permeating the house.

"Maybe I overdid the garlic a little," Bill admitted. "But it's just garlic powder."

Then it hit us.

It's been so long since he's brined a turkey that he'd reversed the basic rule of thumb that dried spices are more concentrated than fresh, and ended up using 16 times as much garlic as the recipe called for.

He remade the brine today, and the house smells normal again.

I can still kinda taste garlic, though.