Trash Turkey

A few years ago, I came across a recipe for cooking a turkey in a trash can and was instantly intrigued. The idea stewed in my mind for a while and finally came to fruition this past weekend. Even though I was the chef in this case, I was skeptical right up until we tasted it. Thankfully, it turned out fantastic!

Items:

  • 31 gallon trash can
  • 13 pound turket
  • tin foil
  • stake
  • charcoal

If the trashcan is galvanized (which it probably is) make sure to spend some time burning out the inside so you all don’t get zinc poisoning. No big deal …

To cook:

  • pound the stake into the ground so that the turkey can perch on it without touching either the can or the ground
  • cover the ground with foil in case the turkey slides off the stake as it cooks (ours did)
  • flip the trash can over the turkey and stake
  • pile charcoal onto of the can as well as all around the base and lite
  • roast marshmellows over the coals
  • let the turkey cook for 2.5 hours (do not lift the can until the end of the 2.5 hours)

Ours came out so good that the meat literally slid off the bones and people couldn’t even wait to get it out of the pit before digging in!

I was thinking through how little I know about these children when I take their initial profile picture here at CURE Zambia. For the most part, I don’t know their hopes, fears, dreams, and aspirations. I don’t know what they’ve been through or all that much about their life. There is a lot you can gather from a first impression, but there is so much more that you cannot. Dwelling on this eventually led me to playing with the photography technique of double exposures as an attempt to illustrate these feelings.

But this is my job, to get to know these children. To sit down and ask them what their dreams are, sometimes for the first time in their life. What do they hope for? What are they afraid of? What makes them happy? What makes them sad? And it is through getting to know these children that I have seen Christ.

I have much to learn from these little ones.