I remember my father was something of a dab hand at carving. Turkey, or indeed any other bird, would appear on my plate come Christmas, roughly the size of a farmer's hand but pancake thin. I remember he did once show me how to do it, but I was about 5 and mum wouldn't let me hold a knife. Ironically, in later years, dad was to actually by me a whole selection of knives from his worldly travels. Airport secruity would probably not let that happen now, and maybe child services would have a thing or two to say as well. But none of them were carving knives.
Up until now, not being able to carve a bird has not really been an issue. There was one embarrasing episode where I got a bit stressed tryign to find enough meat to serve 6 when I could only find enough to feed 4, but other than that, oppotunities to show off my lack of knife skill have been few and thankfully far between.
That was until I spent Christmas with my in laws. It was nice. We ate a lot. Part of what we ate was a turkey. I remember this vividly, because although I was reasonably well pasted by the time it came to it, I ended up carving. I say carving it. I didn't so much carve it as hack into at least one thousand pieces. It looked more like tuna flakes than turkey when I finished with it.
My mother in law had spent a long time cooking that beast, and I did neither her, nor the gobbler any favours in how I presented it. So, the first entry on this blog is how to carve a turkey. Enjoy. (Unfortunately this is done by a yanky chap, it seems they are the experts at this)
