Nov 22, 2007 9:30 pm US/Central
Man Trumps Sister In Biggest Turkey Competition
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) ―
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Rich Portnoy roasted a 72-pound turkey in Minneapolis Thursday.
Portnoy Family
Rich Portnoy's long-standing competition with his sister to prepare the biggest Thanksgiving turkey is over.
Portnoy roasted a 72-pound turkey in his 36-inch-wide chef-caliber oven Thursday to top the biggest turkey his sister had ever roasted by 25 pounds, forcing Andra Portnoy of Reston, Va., to concede defeat long-distance in the family turkey-stakes. She said her brother's oven is too big for her to compete with.
"It actually tastes pretty good!" Portnoy said, gloating a bit after he and two other men pulled the huge bird from the oven after 15 hours of roasting.
Big turkeys are a tradition in the Portnoy family. Portnoy said his father used to cook birds of 30 pounds or more years ago. More recently, Portnoy and his sister began competing to cook the largest bird.
Last year, she cooked a 47-pounder to take the lead after her brother could only find a 37-pounder, even though he lived in the nation's top turkey-producing state.
This year Portnoy approached the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association and they hooked him up with Gold Turkey Farms in Motley, which had an 85-pound breeding tom that, at 59 weeks old, was near the end of its useful life.
Portnoy bought the turkey for $30, carried it live in the back of the family's Honda to a processor in Little Falls, where it was made oven-ready at 72 pounds.
Portnoy and his wife, Charlene, invited 26 people to Thursday's feast. Because they didn't know if the big old tom would be edible, Portnoy also cooked a 19-pound "backup turkey" on the back-yard grill.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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