Bojangle's Holiday Turkey

Bojangle's Thanksgiving turkey,
 cooked up deliciously
with an odd spicy combination
of Cajun seasonings. It's not
 like their chicken, as you would think
 it would be, but a very spicy,
tangy taste as you might equate
with a roasted chicken.

This year's Thanksgiving turkey came from Bojangles. (It should be pointed out they do it for Christmas too.) Our family has been ordering them for several years. The turkeys are partially cooked already, and require a bit of warming but are otherwise a bullet-proof way to cook a Thanksgiving dinner without the hassle of a time-consuming culinary commitment. My dad simply picked up the reserved turkey from Bojangles on Thanksgiving morning, brought it home and baked it for just an hour and half before it was ready for the celebratory nature the day and our mass consumption.

Shannon of course works for Food Lion and they've ended their tradition of cooking turkeys for the public, so Bojangles remains one of the last frontiers for people who don't wish to self-torture themselves with a scratch turkey dinner. Let's be honest, it's 2010, so why would anyone waste their time spending three days of thawing, two days of marinating, and one day of cooking a flightless bird, for only thirty minutes of grunting, swallowing and shoveling, a meat stuffed carcase filled with bread crumbs, in our American pie holes? No this is America. This is the day we're grateful for deep-fried foods, stealing land from Indians, and Cajun turkeys that we can pick up in a drive-thru window. This is why I'm thankful.

It's a foolproof meal, with classic southern flavors that leave more time for family, and less time burning down the house because we forgot to thaw the turkey and doubled the cooking temperature.