Today marks three full days passed since Thanksgiving. A quick survey of food safety web sites reveals that most authorities encourage people to finish refrigerated leftovers no more than four days after they were originally cooked. That means tomorrow is the last day to finish a half of a turducken, one gallon of mashed potatoes, and several quarts of stuffing (oyster and cornbread/sausage), not to mention cranberries and candied carrots. We've not done much damage on the turducken since Thursday and it represents a great deal of edible investment from our household (it probably cost about $50-$65 total to procure all the elements for that thing).

Sadly, most of it will be tossed in the trash come Monday evening (just in time for Tuesday's trash pick up). Neither Christina or I have much appetite for more turducken (a boneless chicken inside a boneless duck inside a boneless turkey). We may pull the duck parts out of it for snacks, but the chicken and turkey layers are likely to be signed over to the local Berkeley landfill authority. It seems like it might be a good idea to just leave it out somewhere a hungry soul might come across it (in Berkeley, those places can be as nearby as your driveway or end of the cul-de-sac where makeshift homeless camps spring up). However, leaving out food also attracts varmits such as raccoons and oppossums that could very well grow larger if you fed them such a gratuitous feast.

Tonight I will go home and begin making stock from the many animal carcasses we collected during this year's Thanksgiving gluttony. This stock should be quite good. Not really sure what we will DO with it once it is made, but in general it's a good idea to try to use as much of these poor beasts as you can. Throwing away perfectly good bones is considered a gauche act in many places.

Off to boil things....