You can have the turkey, but the oysters are mine.

Allow me to let you in on a "Dad" secret.  The juiciest, best tasting morsel on a turkey is a pair of thumb-sized meat chunks that you will likely NEVER personally enjoy.  At least that's true if you eat one of MY turkeys.

It's Thanksgiving week as I write this post, and as I look ahead to the two wonderful birds that i will roast this week, the thing I most look forward to is the one selfish moment that I enjoy every Thanksgiving.  Unless you are an experienced cook, or know how to expertly carve a bird (which by the way is genetically a male trait) you probably don't even know what I'm talking about when I mention the "oysters".  And no, they're not related to the Rocky Mountain kind.

I was taught to carve a bird by a close friend, mentor and buddy named Cal, and in a moment of male bonding one Thanksgiving in Centralia IL Cal called me into the empty kitchen while the rest of the family was distracted by It's A Wonderful Life, and showed me how to carve the bird.  Cal was an excellent cook, and when he invited me to the kitchen I was all ears.  After filling the platter and sending it to the table with his daughter Juliet, Cal called my attention to what I though was a completely dissected bird and revealed what he said was the chef's reward for carving the bird.  The Oysters!  I would never have known they were there if he hadn't pointed them out, and at the risk of drawing too much attention and thereby competition for these morsels, that's all I'm going to say about them.

My bride has no interest in cooking turkeys, or carving them for that matter, so guess what?  After 29 years of marriage my bride has yet to taste an "oyster". 

BTW.  My favorite daughter-in-law helped me carve the turkey last year, so if you want to know more about how good the oysters are, you can ask her.