never buy a bird larger than you can handle
and that reminded me of a story my mother told me...about how she got a brand new kitchen.
The house we lived in had a very large kitchen/dining combination room. We simply called it 'the kitchen'. I don't know exactly, but I think that room was at least 25' x 16'.... it was very large, the house was custom built in the 1920's. I was all part of one large building which comprised the house, large garage, boiler, workshop, and attached to the back were the greenhouses,...large glass warehouse-style buildings in which my father raised hybrid carnations... but that is another story.
The house was built for my father and his first wife (who, sadly, died young). I have no idea who actually planned that kitchen, who wanted it to be that large,... but it seems like a good idea for a young family, probably thinking they would have a large family, as my father came from a family of ten.
The setup, as you entered the house from the garage, was that you entered directly in to the dining room end of the kitchen. It was a large, open space, and at the far end of the room from the entry door was the actual kitchen. There was a window above the kitchen sink, which allowed the person using that sink to look out to the west, across the driveway, yard, and out to the road. There was also a window in the dining area that faced the same view.
The kitchen, as I knew it, was comprised of some lovely, handbuilt wooden cabinets as the counter and storage above the counters. The sink on the west wall, and the stove/oven on the south wall, making an "L" shaped kitchen work area. Uninterrupted counter space, with the stove/oven wedged in between counter areas. I believe that the trash can was at the end of the counter between kitchen area and dining area (but I could be wrong about that). Along the east wall of the room, from the entry door in, were first a bathroom, then a bedroom, and somewhere -perhaps between those 2 rooms was a sideboard. This made the east side of the kitchen something of a hallway.
At some point, well before I was ever thought of, there was an incident that resulted in the kitchen layout I have described:
My parents were entertaining guests,.. I believe it may actually have been Thanksgiving, because a turkey was involved and they only had turkey for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day. The guests were in the living room,... a room equally as large as the kitchen, with more of a family room immediately beyond the south kitchen wall, and a formal sitting room area beyond -up to the south wall of the home.
My mother was in the kitchen preparing the turkey. Here I will admit, that I don't remember every detail of the story, but the turkey must have been coming out of the oven.... My father came to help her move the turkey from the oven to the countertop. Here is the crucial part,..... at that time, before the remodel, the trash can was in a space that existed between the stove/oven and the countertop. (I will surmise that it was not the same stove as when the house was built,... perhaps old gas stoves were much larger than whatever they had at this time.)
By now, if you could follow all of my blather, you may have guessed where this is going.... the part they laughed about later.....
The two of them, carefully moving the turkey from stovetop to counter,...lost control of the bird... and it fell,.....
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.
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into the trash can!!
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.
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which had a fresh paper sack in it. Whew!! That was a close one!! At least the trash was empty, with a new bag. However, my parents were HORRIFIED, and said nothing to their guests, just proceeded with the meal. (wow! that sounds a lot like the plot of a 1960's sitcom.....*loud thud, "is everything all right in there?"...."yes, sure, everything is, um, ....fine")
The following week they began to plan the new kitchen.....
getting ready for holiday dinner
(Thank you, Michelle, for sharing the "bird too big" video on FB.)
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