One 'Flu' Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Remember the old comedy routine, where the patient tells the doctor, "It hurts when I do this," and the doctor whacks him upside the head with a rubber chicken and says, "Well, don't do that!" ?

Well, it hurts when I cook. Especially when I cook a huge holiday dinner for the family. Nobody has ever said to me, "don't do that," so I keep doing it and I have the scars to prove it.

I can never make it through the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays without getting several third degree burns and even some fourth degree ones, if there is such a thing. It seems like I just washed off the *mustard poultice from last year's wounds, and now it's time to do it again.

This year there's another threat to our safety. We could all die from eating the turkey! Now that's scary, I don't care who said it. All this talk about bird flu almost makes me go vegan. However, Christmas dinner just wouldn't be the same without the turkey. Somehow you just don't get that happy holiday feeling when you carve baked tofu.

I think it may be a conspiracy. I believe the birds made it all up in an attempt to escape the holiday hatchet. It started with Chicken Little, screaming that the sky was falling. The rumor spread, as rumors do and by the time it got to the turkey pen, it had changed to "The flu is coming." Then, Old Tom was seen, strutting around the barnyard, spreading the news about some strange avian illness called bird flu.

Or is this simply another ploy by the food police?

Remember during the eighties, when a group of hogs started the pandemic about Swine Flu? How many hams do you think were prepared that year? And did you notice at the beginning of Spring, when we were planning our weekend cook outs and back yard barbecues, how the cows claimed to have gone mad? huh? remember that? It's bound to be a conspiracy, I tell ya. Now even the spinach and the lettuce have jumped aboard the Ptomaine Train.

The only reason I prepare a big meal during the holidays is because hubby likes leftovers; he likes them better than the actual meal. When we eat at someone else's house, the leftovers get left with the host and he gets left with a bologna sandwich.

And while we're on the subject of dinner at someone else's house, why is it that, around the holidays, relatives seem to spring up from everywhere like Kudzu? What starts out to be a sit down dinner for the family, turns out to be a grab-a-plate-and-find-a-corner hoedown, starring forty two cousins and their in laws.

I'm not complaining though. I love large family gatherings. This is about the only time we get to see some of our relatives. I usually begin cooking around October 31st and don't stop until January. It's such a magical season.

This year I am being extremely cautious. I've stocked the pantry with extra mustard for all the anticipated burns and blisters, and even though it may be just another rumor, I'm not taking any chances; first thing tomorrow, I'm taking my turkeys to get their flu shots...