Anatomy Of A Bird

For Easter, I made a small turkey and invited my mother for dinner. It was an easy meal to prepare. Once you stick the bird in the oven, you can go away and do other things. There were just four of us, so the whole meal was very relaxed.

The bird turned out beautifully. As The Man carved the turkey, I put out the asparagus, the salad, and the yams. The Man put some turkey on each plate and put the plate in front of each dinner companion. Walking by, I noticed he hadn't served the stuffing. I said,

- Can you serve the stuffing too. I made stuffing.

- Where's the stuffing?

- In the cavity.

So he put a spoon into the cavity and dug out the stuffing. After two plates, he said,

- Is that all you made? We're out.

- Impossible.

I saw the small amounts of stuffing on the two plates. How could we be out? I looked at the bird. The Man was scooping out stuffing from the neck cavity.

- You went in the wrong end.

- Huh?

He turned the bird around, tested the spoon in the large cavity to see what I meant. I know we were both trying to stifle our laugh, not wanting to say anything risque in front of my mother and our son. So many jokes to make, so few opportunities to make them.

Later, The Boy wanted a little more turkey. He said,

- Dad, can I have a wing please.

The Man tried to yank off a thigh. Putting his fork on the wing, The Boy said,

- No, this is the part I want.

So The man struggled with that instead, gingerly, as if he's trying to figure where to cut.

It dawned on me that maybe The Man's been serious every time he said, Where do I start? before carving. He really may not know the anatomy of a bird. Somehow, this doesn't surprise me. He doesn't eat chicken in any other form but the skinless, boneless, breast fillet. So this may have been the first time he's ever tried to tackle a whole bird by himself.