The crime scene was a turkey roast

Normally, I just let my disasters in the kitchen slide with nary a mention in these parts. However, I've been inspired by Lex Culinaria's honesty about her culinary near-disaster and I've decided to share a little tragedy of my own.

The occasion was a turkey roast that I'd had thawing in the fridge for days. I'd just put the finishing touches on my new light box (via the excellent Make Blog) and here was an excellent opportunity to put it to good use.

Inspired by my foodie brethren, I went all Meathenge on it. I brined the roast, crusted it with some BBQ rub and set it in the oven until the thermometer read done. Add a couple of pieces of lettuce, my slicing knife and voila, a perfect picture of a perfect roast.

It went down pretty well, too. It was a bit salty (brined it a bit too long), but it was still a pretty good dinner. Jenny didn't like it, so she nibbled at hers before making something else for dinner. No big deal. More for me.

Well I certainly got more. More bathroom time. I felt terrible for days.

So I decided to send it to my friend and co-worker Brian for analysis. He promptly went all CSI on it. He simply took my digital image, magnified and enhanced sector C8, adjusted the eigenvalues and tweaked the spectrometer index. The results were shocking.

Yep, garden variety food poisoning. I'm usually a fanatic about keeping my food fresh, but in the hustle and bustle of our trip prep I'd failed to heed FDA guidelines regarding storage of raw turkey. I'd let the bird sit far too long in the fridge, and it paid me back with a little "extra seasoning."

Let this be a lesson to others.