Turkey Free

Some thoughts on turkey:

• It's the form of meat that's closest to vegetable. So often it seems to serve as a kind of meat substitute, replacing beloved beef, chicken, or pork in recipes for chili, burgers, sausages, etc. Anecdotal evidence confirms that the bird itself lacks its own actual flavor, and like tofu, rice, or white bread, serves mainly as a base for items having actual flavor. In terms of sheer quantity after the fourth Thursday of November, it may as well be the staple of one's diet. Indeed, turkey becomes much more appetizing when one pictures two slices of it wrapped around steaming hot slices of pastrami and the sharpest of cheddars with crisp iceberg lettuce, tomato slices, and a dollop of mayo.
• If people really loved it so much, it'd be all over the place. We'd have it every single day. You'd be having it animal-style in your double-double from In-n-out. You'd be ordering it rare from the Black Angus. It'd be done asada-style in your super burrito. I'm not sure what the resource requirements are to farm/ranch/whatever turkey in mass, but science would find a way to do it, IF THE DEMAND WAS THERE.
• It's amazing the lengths people have gone to in recent years to make the bird more interesting to eat. Roasting no longer sufficient, people soak it in various briney concoctions for days before roasting it or plunge it into vats of hot oil at tremendous risk to life and property. All to make eating the damned thing that much more tolerable.

I got a bird this year, but decided to delay cooking it until after we come back from Brazil. Then, free from the trappings of holiday tradition, I'd like to try the deep fry in a ceremony that will be like something of a cross between an ICBM test launch and a holiday feast.

As for this Thanksgiving dinner, it was spent turkey-free with the family over at a cousin's place in the south bay. The cousin's wife had whipped up an odd cider of sorts from the tangerines in the backyard which went well with a shot of Johnny Walker Black.

There are many like it

... but this one's mine.


Um... the arrow's missing 'cause Starbuck took it.

So I like figure sculpting and all, but it was getting frustrating because I really didn't know WTF I was doing. Earlier in the fall I finally signed on for an instructional course that a friend of mine from work was teaching. Approaches vary, as always. He tended to be pretty technical and went in-depth into muscle groups and how they layer on top of each other. Free sculpting classes will be starting back up at work and we'll have a guy from the model shop running those. He's much less technical, but by all accounts is terrific.

My friend's class was open to the public, which produced an odd mix. You'd have your art students on the one hand. On the other you'd have your retirees and desperate housewives. Watching my friend deal with this latter group was damned entertaining. Oh God, the WHINING. "Well I DID what you SAID!!!" usually barked with a nasal shrill, was often heard.

Anyway, I got a lot out of it. I didn't really produce anything worth mentioning from that class because we were building up and tearing down a lot. But I finally finished off another studio session with all that knowledge fresh in mind, and I think my product isn't entirely disgraceful.

People are often curious how these studio sessions run. Well, typically you meet 3 hours once a week for 6-8 weeks. The first one we all agree on a pose, and that's what the model does for the whole session. Once that's settled, you just do your thing. Some people do what's there. Some stylize it. Usually you exaggerate the pose a lot for drama. I ended up bulking the guy up a lot and giving a higher angle to his aim. I actually did some archery back in high school, so I made a lot of adjustments to form and hand positions.

Yes, the model is stark nekkid the whole time. And no, it isn't awkward. After a while you're cracking jokes like you would with a co-worker. Quite often we end up having dinner with them after the session.

It was a great pose in general, but I think I had more affinity for it since it is more martial than the typical poses we pick. I actually had to do this particular one across 4 sessions. Work was too busy to make the earlier parts of this session.