Have you ever had a “real” turkey? If you’ve only had the Thanksgiving special sale turkey, you haven’t had a “real” turkey. This year we provided turkeys from like-minded growers on request. One of those growers is the Duerksons from Mancelona. They raise pasture fed turkeys on a “clean” feed and hand process them as we do with our chickens. The result is a turkey that is as superior to a Butterball turkey as our chickens are to a Tyson chicken. They still have some big fowls running around, and now would be a great time to give your body a break from all the sweets and highly processed food (including, if you’re a label reader, the average store meats you’re eating) and eat a lighter-on-the-body, no-nasty-stuff-included chicken or turkey. We’ve only heard good things about Duerkson’s turkeys: tasty, moist, good texture. And that from people who wouldn’t claim to be Julia Child. Our Duerkson turkey is slated for New Year’s dinner. We’ll miss the old turkey shoot routine, though they offered to send a live turkey if we wanted it! I’m sure John, our Cherry Capital Foods wonderdriver, would enjoy that one.
SO, the upshot is, we raise our chickens and Mangalitsa pigs, but we can procure other fantastic meats as well and if turkey appeals to you, Duerkson’s is the best local turkey around. Just let us know how many you want! “We can do that!”