Pics of this year's Thanksgiving fried turkey!

As I have done (most) Thanksgivings since 2002, I deep-fried some turkey! Just now getting the pics up 'cuz my girlfriend Kristen stayed here for the holiday: our first Thanksgiving together! And she was the one taking the pics and I hadda wait until she got back home to pull them to her computer and send them to me. So for those who had wondered if I fried turkey this year: ohhhhh yeah!!

In fact, I fried two birds this Thanksgiving. The first for another family that are good friends of mine, and the second was ours. Kristen was there to photo document most of the entire process.

Here I am with that crazy look that I get whenever my mouth starts salivating for fried turkey. It was probably a good thing that Kristen spent this Thanksgiving with me: she got to see how I really am when it comes to deep-frying turkey. I'd been warning her for months that this was coming, but to see it with her own eyes... well, nothing could have truly prepared her. You know how in the past few movies that he's done, how Daniel Day-Lewis gets that murderous glint in his eye before going psycho on some poor shlub? Well, that's pretty much me at this time of year...

Injecting the bird with garlic butter. I began marinading at 4 a.m. on the day before Thanksgiving, and gave each bird three full treatments of marinade and Cajun seasoning!

More marinading after giving a bird a healthy dose of Cajun seasoning. I pour gobs of the stuff onto the skin and then vigorously rub it in hard and deep...

Thanksgiving morning: pouring the cottonseed oil into the pot, which will soon be heated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit...

CAREFULLY lowering the turkey into the oil...

45 minutes later (cooking at 3 minutes per pound) the turkey is done! :-)

Now all that's left to do is carve into it and eat it! And everyone agree that it was incredibly delicious as always! Kristen said that it was lived up to the hype :-)

Now, only 25 days before I get to do it all over again. The second-most deadly form of cooking known to man (after preparing fugu) and in the tenth year of doing it, I haven't burned the house down. Yet. Let's hope my streak of good luck continues for many more years to come :-P

Thanks to Kristen for taking such great photos!