YACK on: Turkey Advisory Committee
Grant Sanders
You may think I am certifiably insane, but I have actually attended a few Sewer Advisory Committee meetings. (One's opinion of my mental state may not have anything to do with the Sewer Advisory Committee, but let's not split hairs.) I have found the SAC to be one of the most entertaining meetings to attend, not because the subject matter is all that interesting, but because there is a palpable drama and tension in the room that has not existed in local politics for several months. It's pretty interesting.

I wonder what it would be like for them to tackle other issues. Like planning Thanksgiving Dinner for example. Here's what it might look like, if the Sewer Advisory Committee became the Turkey Advisory Committee:

Nancy Wheatley: This meeting of the TAC should now come to order. I ask for the unanimous approval of the agenda.

Finn Murphy: Before we do that I have a comment to make about the menu.

Nancy Wheatley: Are you raising an objection to the approval of the agenda?

Finn Murphy: No madam chairman, I'm simply making a comment that I hope we will continue to go over the draft menu I developed last week and that many of us have worked on in your absence.

Nancy Wheatley: I have some serious concerns about your menu, Mr. Murphy.

Rick Atherton: Actually, it's not really Finn's menu. We all have worked on it and I believe one can now categorize it as the committee's menu.

Nancy Wheatley: Still I have some serious concerns about the menu.

Michael Kopko: Well why don't we just go through the menu one item at a time and discuss what you don't like about the menu?

Nancy Wheatley: I don't think it makes a lot of sense to parse out all of the details about the menu here.

Michael Kopko: Well, what are your concerns? Let's see if we can address them and move the ball down the field here.

Nancy Wheatley: Well, let's look at item number one. Crudités. But it includes black olives and baby gherkin pickles. This is a problem. I have prepared crudités for my entire adult life all around the Commonwealth and I have never seen a crudités plate with any kind of brined or pickled vegetable. It's just not done. And what do you do with the pits from the olives? I think this is just bad pre-meal policy to serve something like that and I don't think I can sign off on it.

Jeff Willett: May I say something? I see nineteen items on the menu here and we have already spent an hour on the crudités and by my calculations we will require about 23 hours just to finish, so can we try to talk in broader strokes, please?

Barbara Gookin: I have an idea. How about we just get a separate serving dish for the olives and the gherkins and then make sure the olives are pitted, so there are no pits to dispose of?

[Silence]

Barbara Gookin: Hey ... How come whenever I speak up and make by far the most sensible and intelligent and constructive suggestions in the room, no one says anything? [Silence]

Barbara Gookin: *groan*

David Gray: I think it's really important that if we are going to deep fry the turkey that we take all of the necessary steps to ensure that we don't put too much oil in the pot because those turkey fryer things are unstable and can spill over an open flame and then go up in a hurry and burn the whole place down.

Richie O'Neil: And we should make sure we have the right size pans because there's nothing worse than being there on Thanksgiving morning and not having the right size pans to do the job. I've seen it happen.

Michael Kopko: I think it's our job to recommend the menu, I don't think we have to be concerned with how it is actually cooked.

Charity Benz: Here's my thing. Who is going to pay for all this food? I mean, what if a couple of guests show up at the last minute and just eat for free? Is that right? Are we asking everyone at the table to subsidize the people who just show up? Are we going to ask them to pitch in and help pay for it? Or should we just make enough turkey for the people we know will be at the table on Thanksgiving morning?

Rich Atherton: Good point. We are looking at a whole lot of money here and we haven't even discussed pies yet.

Andrew Vorce: Let me just interject that I think that the way we set the table is very important. I would not like to use the act of setting the table to limit the size of the turkey in any way. The proponents of smaller turkeys are always trying to use table and plate size to affect how much turkey there is. We should leave the politics out of these decisions.

Jeff Willett: I agree.

Nancy Wheatley: I still have some serious concerns with crudités.

Finn Murphy: (Packing up papers and notebooks) well it's clear to me that my menu is causing some real problems here and nothing can get done with me here, so I'm leaving.

[Door slams]

Nancy Wheatley: I think we have just enough time tonight to take some audience comments.

Grant Sanders: I just hope that no one is thinking of putting melted marshmallows on top of the candied yams again this year. That's just wrong. Entire Committee: *groan*

YACK on. I

Grant Sanders is the Host of YACK, the Nantucket Online Community at yackon.com and he has a whole lot to be thankful for this year. His views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of The Nantucket Independent.