Many times, great ideas are hatched when you least expect it for example while in the shower or driving to work. In this particular case, our spark of genius (or madness?) occurred on a Saturday afternoon in September while watching college football. Somehow we started talking about Turducken and we decided to get one for Thanksgiving this year.

Whut in thee hayul is a Turducken? Picture in your mind a whole duck, a whole chicken, and a whole turkey, each deboned. You take the duck, slip it inside the chicken, then slip both into a 15-20 lb. turkey. Of course, along the way, you fill in between the layers of differing meat with sausage, stuffing, etc. Then you sew the whole contraption together, slip that bad boy into an oven at 190 deg. F for 12-15 hours, slice it like a roast, and voila! You have a multi-layered carnivore's delight! I first had a Turducken during my stint in Texas, and it was absolutely delicious, albeit somewhat weird. But then again, it is the dirty South. Fortunately, Los Gatos Meats here in the Bay Area makes Turducken, so I ordered one and we were on our way down the path of no return.

Dan Johnson and his roommates were kind enough to offer up their house in Palo Alto to host this event which is fortunate because it's a huge beautiful place, but more importantly comes with a somewhat obsessive-compulsive cleaning roommate to help contain the aftermath of a party organized by a bunch of guys.

Of course like any good idea, things tend to be taken a bit too far, so we decided to deep fry a turkey, also. This involves injecting a turkey using a syringe with a flavored sauce to keep the meat moist and then deep frying it in a huge vat of peanut oil. Kudos to Randy for taking care of the deep fried turkey, providing visual entertainment, and not burning down the house in the process.

The cooking began at 2 am the day of the event. Dan and I got the Turducken ready and put it into the oven to start the long 12-14 hour cooking process. I woke up once at 5 am to make sure things were ok and then it was on to a day of hanging out and watching football. Randy and Katie showed up around 1 pm to prep the deep fried turkey and make gravy. Others even got into the Turducken spirit of putting food into other food when Claire made an "Appecan" pie, an ingenius and delicious combination of apple and pecan pie.

Everything finally got ready around 5 pm and the feasting began. Thanks to everyone that brought side dishes (cranberry sauce, salad, yams, mashed potatoes, etc). We fed around 17 people, but had enough food to feed at least 30. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing! By 6:30 pm, we were all overdosed on tryptophan and slipping slowly into a food-induced coma.