How Kenny Rogers Saved THANKSGIVING

I love the holidays. There isn’t a thing I don’t love about the holidays. Thanksgiving just so happens to be my favorite of holidays, so much in fact, that it’s often referred to as YANGSgiving. Unfortunately, this is the first Thanksgiving I have ever spent away from home and the family. And as such, I was going to do everything within my power to have a proper one away from home, and there was really nothing that was going to stand in the way of me doing so. Not even the great nation of China. This is a story of trials and tribulations, of blood and sweat, and of heroes born from the most unlikely of places. This is the story…of Thanksgiving.

So there were a few very big obstacles China decided to throw in the path of our successful Thanksgiving experience. For starters, there were no days off allotted to us, as the government demands that every day be a day of thanks to modernity of the Middle Kingdom. So there had to be intensive prep work done to get dinner started in a timely manner. Secondly, the Chinese don’t particularly care for the turkey bird, as I’ve been told they are convinced that the turkey is only as large as it is because it has been genetically modified to feed all the fat Americans (no joke). This means I had to sprint to what arguably might have been the last market with turkeys left the night before because my butcher thought I just wanted a really large chicken.

The last of said obstacles was to be the hardest to overcome. There are many things that the everyday Chinese household still lacks: drying machines, dishwashers, a general conception of personal space, and ovens. For you see, the Chinese don’t eat freshly baked cookies or grandma’s casseroles, let alone whole 16 pound turkeys. There are a few who have had ovens installed, but in utilizing one of these rare ovens, I would have had to share my Thanksgiving with an English satellite friend, one who is nice enough, but has terrible friends. So what were we to do…? In comes my saint.

This is Kenny Rogers. You might know him as one of America’s most beloved country singers, the man behind 21 hit number one singles, and winner of the 1986 USA Today  “Favorite Singer of All-Time” award. What you might not know is that Kenny Rogers is also the father of an extremely successful chain of rotisserie chicken restaurants all across Asia. Do you see where I’m going with this?

Yes, that’s right. We somehow convinced Kenny Rogers Roasters to allows us to slow roast our turkey in their giant rotisserie oven. How? That sounds ridiculous? That’s because it is ridiculous. That’d be like me walking into a Boston Market and asking them if I could use their oven to roast my Peking duck. They’d be like, take your raw duck and get the hell out of here. BUT KENNY ROGERS IS GOOD PEOPLE. Oh and it came out fantastic. We managed all the other dressings quite well, but the turkey was beautifully done. All that you see below was done by your’s truly (except the beetcake, that was Roth).

Never give up on Thanksgiving, because Thanksgiving will never give up on you. Next time you’re in Beijing Kenny, hit me up, I owe you one. Until next time.