Missing Willow Farm

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We slaughtered one of our turkeys last weekend to take to our friend’s chef getaway.  It dressed out at 17 pounds.  Yikes!  Can you imagine what size they’ll be at Thanksgiving?!  We started way too early.  I suppose we’ll have to slaughter early and buy yet another freezer to store them in.   Anyhoo… we asked Sean Brock to smoke it for us.  Sean was the winner of the “Next Great Chef” episode of the “Food Network Challenge”, is going to be on “Iron Chef America”, won the James Beard “Best Chef Southeast” award in 2010 and his restaurant Husk was just named “Best New Restaurant in America” by Bon Appetit magazine two weeks ago.  Not bad, eh!?   And he’s the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet.  Sean had a mesquite rub mixed up, it included bourbon smoked black pepper.  I wonder why I haven’t seen that at WalMart?  After rubbing it inside and out with olive oil, the rub was slathered on.  It spent about 3 hours in the smoker.  I think it lasted less than ten minutes after carving.  Without a doubt, the best turkey I’ve ever tasted.  We’re going to try it ourselves. Why not, we got a lesson from the best!