The Coalition of the Swilling

Firstly, the beasty had been thawing in the back fridge for 5 days, right above the twice-baked potatos and keylime pie that I also slaved over:

Now it's out on the counter for you, you spineless beast!

Onto the rack...

And tented in the oven for 3 hours.

Not very exciting, really. Thank God I had a lot of wine and dear reader/de facto family member KCruella over to keep us company! She arrived shortly before the Turd came out of the oven to be de-tented...

WTF is that stuff oozing out? That's three different types of avian blood burbling up through the Frankensteinian sutures holding this unholy creation together, like some sort of Beverly Hillbilly/Marilyn Manson/Emeril nightmarish melange...thank goodness I was the only one in the kitchen at this point, or they would have been dialing Dominos.

Anyhow, back in the oven for another hour, spawn of Satan!

Man, the house is starting to smell great. Is this damn thing done yet?

170º! Yes! Now sit for 30 minutes while I heat up the twice-baked...

You can sort of see the stitching as it's on the platter.

Then you pull the thread out, slice it lengthwise down the center along the thread line, and cut the slices from that half...

The pride of any table!

But how did it taste, you ask? Well, interesting is the first thing that comes to mind. Overall, the cajun spices were fairly strong; I liked that, mind you, but I'm not so sure about everyone else. It was stuffed with a cornbread/pork stuffing that was divine, really. The turkey and the chicken were done, if I may say so, to perfection: still moist and full of flavor. The duck portion of it had a funny texture. Oh, it was definitely cooked, but the texture was more like...pork, I guess, then what I would expect duck to be.

I'm not sure it will reappear at Christmas, but I will certainly have another one at some point.