It's a Wonderful Tur-Duc-Hen! *Christmas Entry*

I didn’t think I’d be here until after the holidays, but after having the Christmas that I had, I simply couldn’t resist. Plus, I did something new, or rather ate something new, so I figured that it’s only appropriate to share it with you all.

As you may know, I had my family out from WI this past week as Kevin was gone in WI to see his. A couple days before Kevin left he surprised me with a tur-duc-hen that he had special ordered a few weeks ago from Louisiana. He had it delivered to the Harp so I had no idea what he was up to until he had me go pick it up.

For those who don’t know what a tur-duc-hen is, it’s a de-boned chicken shoved into a de-boned duck that shoved into a partially de-boned turkey. I have to use the word ‘shoved’ or it loses its humor factor. Oh, and in between the shoved birds is a layer of stuffing with Creole sausage. Yum. Kevin and I had wanted to get a tur-duc-hen for Thanksgiving or Christmas the very moment we heard of its existence. However, by the time Thanksgiving and Christmas came around, we had forgotten to order it in time and had to settle for a boring turkey with nothing what-so-ever shoved into it. Kevin getting the family and I one for Christmas was the most awesome-est present ever. The only sad thing was that Kevin wouldn’t be around to enjoy it.



After opening prezzies Christmas morning (I got the Harry Potter movie box set…*squeal!*), I went ahead and put in the tur-duc-hen. I didn’t tell the family what we were having and up until I pulled it out of the refrigerator, we all simply referred to it as the ‘mystery meat’. They were pleasantly surprised that we weren’t having ostrich or buffalo balls.


A thawed tur-duc-hen should take about 4 ½ hours to cook. Kevin had warned me that it is easy to dry out the bird(s) so I took plenty care to baste it every 45 minutes. I have also never basted anything before, so I guess that’s a non-exciting new thing as well.


The tur-duc-hen ended up taking 5 hours to cook all the way through (as indicated with my brand new meat thermometer) and when it came out it looked delicious regardless of what my father’s finger is indicating.


Everyone loved the tur-duc-hen, even my step-mother who didn’t have hers until the next day due to the illness of drinking the Bloody Mary’s I prepared for her. Sorry Mom! We accompanied the meat with mashed potatoes, green bean casserole (Kevin, there was nary a serving of green bean casserole left when dinner was over…you are the only one in the ole US who doesn’t like G.B. casserole! Hee hee), gravy and rolls (a typical Midwest dinner without a speck of non-dressed vegetable in sight). It was excellent.


After dinner, my dad stayed at home with our still very ill mother, while my brother, sister, cousin and I went down to the pier to meet Patrick and Michele for a Duffy ride. If I thought I was having fun before, I was about to be blown away.

Things started out simply enough. We cruised around the bay for a few hours, drinking wine, eating cheese and crackers, talking and looking at all the fancy houses decorated with Christmas lights. It was fairly quiet on the bay and with all the tur-duc-hen in my stomach I became really relaxed to the point of sleepiness…but in that good way.




About an hour or so in, we ran out of wine. There was no place on the bay to stop and get more, so instead we floated over to Michele’s parent’s house where Michele’s ex-husband’s boat just happened to be.

“You have to be really really quiet”

“Why?”

“We’re going to steal some wine off of the boat.”

So Patrick and I became the official pirates of Newport Beach. Except there wasn’t any wine on the boat so we took some Bailey’s and Kaluha instead. Michele wasn’t happy with our plundering so she snuck into her parent’s house for wine and the most delicious eggnog I’ve ever had.


After another hour or so, we floated past the Balboa Bay Club and noticed that they were indeed open. Even though we weren’t dressed properly, we went in anyhow and had a couple cocktails courtesy of Patrick. We talked with the gay bartender, Stephen (who gave my brother and my cousin free beers but not my sister and I), and watched Michele sing with the pianist. We might have been having too much of a good time as the manager kept giving us the stink eye the entire time and looked a bit too relieved when we finally left.




We floated around for another hour (Michele had tried to head back but all of us, included Patrick, pleaded for just another 20 minutes more on the boat) and finally docked. My car was parked at the Shamrock, so we all decided to go in for a cocktail courtesy of me.

Michele and Patrick were pretty tired so they left right after their drinks were done. My sister, brother, and cousin who are all in their early twenties wanted to stay, so stay we did. We ended up talking with Finky and Nads most of the night.


It was at the Shamrock that my sister taught me the Christmas Tree Dance. The video explains most of it (with the actual dance of course) but I’ll describe it as well. The dance goes as following: First you make the tree, then you hang the garland, then you put on the ornaments, then the star, then the presents, then you chop it down and take it to the curb. It’s an awesome dance as Maggie will demonstrate below (even though the music isn’t optimal for it).



At about midnight, we took a cab back to my house. Of course the KIDS (they yelled at me before for calling them that but I don’t care) didn’t feel like they were done so we walked over to a very dead Pierre Street Annex. I made the KIDS fill out Lotto ticket slips for me (didn’t win a thing by the way) while my sister did the Christmas Tree Dance with the DJ. Thankfully the bar closed after about 40 minutes of us being there and we finally went home to pizza and tur-duc-hen.

Best. Christmas. Ever.

The Duffy - Newport Beach, CA

Hello again! As promised, here is the 2nd entry of the week or as I would like to call it, “Why I think my California friends are awesome.”

Before I start singing CA praises, I would like to say that I love and I miss my friends in Wisconsin dearly. If I could convince each and every one of them to come out here to live I would. Of course, I would make them open a Champion’s Pub, Alterra Coffee, Apollo Greek restaurant, and a Conejitos if they did. Man, do I miss Conejitos…and this coming from the girl who lives close to some of the best Mexican restaurants around.

My Wisconsin friends are awesome and so are my California friends. One of the many reasons why I love my California friends is their enthusiasm to things, especially new ideas. A problematic trait of Wisconsinites (myself included) is the general wariness to things that sound sort of lame when first mentioned. My personal example is when Beth’s sister took me line dancing. I should have relaxed a bit, laughed and had a good time regardless if it wasn't something I was actually into. But no…instead I sulked in the corner hating every cowboy hat that passed me. My California friends are naturals at relaxing, laughing, and having a good time. As lame as this blog can be either at first mention or in detail, they’re enthusiastic about it. They promote my blog to more strangers than I do. Patrick called me up once to pretty much tell me, “We’re currently sitting around laughing at your blog.” Patrick was also the one who decided to surprise me with this new this weekend idea. All I had to do was be ready at 1 PM on Sunday. How awesome is that?

Kevin and I were indeed ready at 1 PM on Sunday when Patrick picked us up for my surprise new thing this weekend. When I got to the car, I realized that either the surprise was going to be a party thing, most likely on the water, or they were going to kidnap us, cut off our arms and legs, and dump us in the desert with nary a dibble of water between us. Thankfully it was a party thing on the water because I was already really dehydrated that day.

The first couple years I lived in California, I never once was on a boat on the ocean. I used to dream of having a friend who owned a boat, or at least knew someone else who had a boat. I now DO have a friend who has a boat and little did I realize that people who own boats typically know other people who own boats. This is the roundabout way of saying that we went on my friends’ friend’s Duffy, which is a little electric boat with a canopy on top. It was perfect for cruising around Newport Harbor if I do say so myself.

Yeah yeah, another boat entry. I like the ocean. I like boats. I can’t help it. You’ll have to blame Patrick this time though.



So Patrick, Michele, Linda, Dave, Jill, Kevin and I all boarded the Duffy on a sunshine-y Sunday afternoon. The first thing to know about a Duffy is that because it’s a small vessel, you have to evenly distribute the passenger weight to both sides. I think this very fact affected my vertigo just a wee bit. I certainly didn’t want to ask anyone’s weight (or have anyone ask mine for that matter) to do a calculation of body weight to beer and snack ratio thus to allow the Duffy to maintain an even keel. I think most of the time we were all leaning a bit port side. Look at me! I’ve been on enough boats this past year to know which is which!


Patrick would like to show the heathen vs. gentlemen why of tying up a boat.

I think one of the best things about a Duffy is it’s ‘I don’t give a crap, I’m just a floating party boat, wanna a beer?’ attitude. You can just motor around, wave to the big ships passing you by, talk sausage (Kevin’s term), and enjoy the day. You can pretty much stop anywhere in the harbor that has a dock (which most do) without too much hassle. Duffy’s aren’t made for anything but that purpose. So now I have golf cart and Duffy on the list of silly things I would buy if I had a whole bunch of money that I didn’t feel like donating to poor people.



Anyhow, the first stop we made was to get gas. Yeah, it was pretty cool. I’ve always realized that you need to have floating gas stations to fill up your boat but I still am pretty fascinated with a 7-11 on the water. I had to buy a t-shirt. No seriously, I bought a t-shirt.


Ok, it's not a 7-11, but it's damn close.

The next stop was the Balboa Yacht club where Michele was sweet enough to buy us all really really yummy Bloody Marys. This is also where we learned that Patrick ironed Michele’s shirt for her that day. While I personally don’t think that in itself was a big deal, the group ran with it and called poor Patrick ‘nancy’ and ‘whipped’ all day long. ‘Nancy’ and ‘whipped’ are my phrases, I don’t dare report the sausage that Dave was hitting Patrick with. (Did that sound dirty?)


Linda, Patrick, Michele, Dave, Jill, Me, and Kevin (with hat)

After the yacht club and floating around for a couple more hours we headed back. We had planned an evening gathering at my place but I turned into the nancy when I cancelled due to tiredness. I know, I know.

Just because he did this it deserves to be posted.

I want to give a quick thanks to Patrick and Michele for the idea and Dave, Jill and Linda for the laughs. You guys are truly awesome.