Without question, Thanksgiving is the best holiday of the year. By a long shot.

Every November I get my absolute favorite present: food. Piles upon piles of rich, heavy, delicious food. I’ve heard that there is some “friends and family” jazz involved, and something about the pilgrims, but I’m usually too distracted by gravy boats and sweet potato casserole to notice.

In my household, we generally alternate between two kinds of bird every year – either a deep fried turkey or the meaty behemoth, the turducken. So, when the opportunity arose to document the creation of one of these multi-layered frankenfowls, I leapt at it.

No, seriously. I leapt…as in “jumped up and down.”

Some of you may remember John’s post about the “meat theme park” known as the Douglasville Retail Meats and Smokehouse back in ’09. Well, owner Dave Widaski now has a new location in Acworth by the name of Findley’s Butcher Shop, and its turducken making season.

Rather than re-hash all of John’s previous sentiments about the place, I’m just going to focus on the bird(s). However, I loved this place and I can see why John did too. The meat selection is impressive, specifically their array of all things sausage, and the staff is extremely friendly.

For those unschooled about the wondrous turducken, here are the Cliff’s Notes: A chicken stuffed into a duck, wrapped in a turkey, with layers of stuffing in between. Queue the copious drooling.

On this particular afternoon, Widaski assembled a “breast turducken”, consisting of two deboned turkey, duck, and chicken breasts. The “whole turducken” is the same concept, but with all of the dark meat rolled in there as well.

To start things off, Widaski removes the breasts of a turkey, keeping the skin intact, so that both sides stay together as one piece. He then spreads a layer of his wild rice pecan stuffing – one of multiple stuffing options– before adding a pair of butterflied duck breasts, thankfully with the skin and fat still intact.

Sidebar: Do not ever waste duck fat. Dante should have added a tenth circle to his Inferno for people that do that.

Next up is more stuffing, followed by two butterflied chicken breasts and another layer of that buttery stuffing. Now comes the interesting part.

You can’t exactly roll this thing up like a burrito. Using some McGyver-esque ingenuity, Widaski and his chef Bobby Miller use a pitcher with the bottom sawed off and some netting to bring everything together.

The end result? A whopping 12 lbs. of turducken, which is enough to feed 14-16 people. And at $70/ea for one of these, that’s just under $5/head.

After the demo, Widaski gave me a tour of the shop and I proceeded to put a hurtin’ on my credit card, loading up my cart with smoked sausages, pork tenderloins, and plenty of those kabano snack sticks. Because all of their turduckens are usually pre-ordered, this demo bird was destined for the freezer to await the arrival of a walk-in customer, like a sad puppy at a mall pet shop.

I hate sad puppies, almost as much as I hate duck fat wasters.

I didn’t even make it out of the parking lot before I caved. I turned my car around, marched back into the store, and rescued that freshly made turducken from the cold depths. It just felt like the right thing to do.

The turducken was a hit with my friends and I proceeded to eat off it for days. Now I have to wait a whole two weeks to do it again. The 25th can’t come fast enough.

Info:

Findley’s is taking turducken orders through Nov. 18th for Thanksgiving. When in doubt, order early, as the duck has a tendency to run out closer to the holiday.

Findley’s Butcher Shop

3450 Cobb Parkway,Acworth, 770-529-4646,  www.mygourmetsteaks.com

- Jon Watson writes about Popular Eats for the AJC Dining Team. He also publishes his own blog, Live To Feast