{"id":554,"date":"2017-10-26T19:18:18","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T19:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cusjc.ca\/midweek\/?p=554"},"modified":"2017-10-27T22:22:43","modified_gmt":"2017-10-27T22:22:43","slug":"how-to-cook-a-turkey-over-a-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/midweek\/how-to-cook-a-turkey-over-a-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"How to cook a turkey over a fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes the best meals are not cooked in an oven, but under the stars and in the woods with friends. For the past seven years, friends and I have gone on what we call a “turkey trot”.<\/p>\n

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Canoeing in Kawartha Provincial Park | Photo by Patrick Gilhooly<\/p><\/div>\n

Every Thanksgiving, we head into the bushes to cook a turkey over a fire. Sometimes it’s on foot, our backs weighed down by boxed wine and grub. Others times, we go by canoe. We also bring all the side-dishes: such as pineapple pork stuffing, gruyere cheese mashed potatoes, grape and walnut brussel\u00a0sprouts, stuffed squash, beets with goat cheese, fire-roasted parsnips, highbush cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. We use the fire to cook everything. Sometimes we need multiple fires, as the feast gets quite large. The tradition has happened across Canada: the Canadian Rockies, coastal BC, and Ontario. Sometimes the trot goes well, and one time it did not.<\/p>\n

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Preparing the bird | Photo by Patrick Gilhooly<\/p><\/div>\n

Nevertheless, lessons were learned. The trot will never again be held on the BC coast as it can be too wet. It rained so much we barely got a fire going and it never became large enough for the turkey. We cooked what we could, which was mostly just the stuffing and retreated to an emergency\u00a0cabin. It rained so much that a nearby creek burst it’s bank and started to flow under the hut. As we lay in our sleeping bags, it felt like we were in a ship as water swished past under the floorboards. During the night, a mouse got at the turkey. We didn’t notice and\u00a0while my friend\u00a0Jake carried it back to town the next day in his backpack, it leaked all over his sleeping bag. And the worst part – Jake is a vegetarian.<\/p>\n

Like I said, lessoned learned. It’s best to have the trot in places where you can have good fires.<\/p>\n

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Turkey Trot 2017 | Photo by Patrick Gilhooly<\/p><\/div>\n

This Thanksgiving, we went to Kawartha Provincial Park<\/a> in Ontario. It’s popular with canoe enthusiasts. Although we had some rain, the weather was splendid. There were nine of us in attendance this year, one even flew in for the weekend from Alberta. Here’s what the trip sounded like:<\/p>\n