So, in “normal” years (yes, that term annoys me too), this would be the week that the Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions holds their annual conference. They are doing a virtual conference this year, of course, so we are all missing Orlando. I know, boo hoo. I dislike Orlando as much as the rest of the professional world, especially when I’m clustered at a somewhat-remote resort that you can’t easily escape from without dropping $50 on an Uber.

But feeling nostalgic, I figured I’d try to recreate the Orlando experience at home a week ago and dive into the world of the giant turkey leg. You know the one – it’s the giant hunk of meat that kids in their Mickey Mouse hats walk around Disney in their grubby hands gnawing on for hours and hours. It always seemed like fun, but perhaps a little gluttonous for a day at the Magic Kingdom. But at home? In coronavirus days? There is no such thing as too gluttonous!

You’ll find on this part on the Excalibur Medical Education website that a lot of my “Lifestyle” posts will focus on cooking and some basic tips I figured I’d throw out there. Audrie’s will focus on glitter or makeup or clothes or some such nonsense… er, I mean, vital information for survival. I’m sure I’ll write more in the future about some of my culinary past, but needless to say, I’m pretty handy and versatile in the kitchen. So giant turkey legs really didn’t sound like too much of a challenge.

As with many game birds (ie, chicken, turkey, etc.), the key to cooking meat on the bone is a good brine. In my younger years, brining meat always seemed like one of those pains in the butt that were probably unnecessary. And if you are going for dinner that is, “Good enough,” then by all means, skip it. But a brine of at least 6 hours (and often overnight) really does makes a difference.

“But isn’t your food too salty?” my dad asked me this weekend. No, not if you do it right. While there is a lot of salt in most brine, it dissolves in a giant cauldron of water so you don’t taste the saltiness when you cook the meat. You brine the meat, you dry it off before it goes on the grill/in the oven, and all of the salty goodness is vacuumed up and contained inside the meat. Probably my favorite chicken recipe (this one – it’s super easy but tremendously delicious!) owes a good deal of the final successful flavor to an all day-long brine.

The giant turkey legs ended up in the brine for about 4 hours before they went on the grill. I’m not sure it was long enough because they still came off a little bit dry. Here is what they looked like when they were done (my food photography skills need some work):

Not my favorite recent dinner and not something I plan on repeating anytime soon. I appreciated the finger food part of it – we wrapped the ends in newspaper to give it an even more Disney experience – but it just wasn’t as moist as I was hoped. Turkey is generally tricker than c?hicken so I really don’t go at it too often. But hey, at least I can say I got my pseudo-Orlando experi?ence for the year.