Cooking Thanksgiving dinner doesn't go smoothly *every* year.
*Submissions have been edited and condensed for clarity.“Lots of gravy was a must on Turkey Day at our house. Mom reaches in the fridge for the milk carton . She adds it to the awesome pan drippings and we have plenty of gravy. Unbeknownst to mom, dad had poured his homemade eggnog into a regular carton and left it right up front. Yep, mom had made all that yummy turkey gravy with sweet eggnog! We went from lots of gravy to none. Everyone was super bummed—it even made my brother cry.
"Finally, success. The perfect thickness—or so I thought. As my mom returned to the kitchen to check on the gravy, she tasted it and did not look pleased. The seven words I’ll never forget: 'What did you do to the gravy?' Just then, my sister, Jill, wandered by as I was explaining to my mom that I added a bit of corn starch to the gravy to thicken it to the right consistency.
"Fast forward a couple of days and it's the night before Thanksgiving. We also have a smoked ham that we're planning to cook for the meal, so I figure that I'll cook the turkey that night so there's room in the oven for everything else I need to cook the following day. I go to remove the turkey from the brine and it just doesn't quite smell right.
"Two hours in, our tiny apartment STINKS. I go to throw out the turkey and the smell is literally one of the worst smells I've ever smelled in my entire life. I took the turkey in its giant roasting dish out into our backyard and I'm trying to figure out how to get this hot, rotten turkey into a garbage bag all on my own . I honestly don't even remember how I did it. However, I do remember going back into my apartment and realizing I had a major problem on my hands...