I’d left the peanut oil out too long after deep-frying the Thanksgiving turkey and it’d turned rancid. My dog got into some of it and spent the next couple of days vomiting, poor thing. He did it quietly and every time I thought he was over it, he wasn’t. And at our yearly post holiday potluck, our nextdoor neighbor, wearing his new Italian loafers wasn’t so thrilled about it either.

I called Joe to ask how he gets rid of used oil. He’s been frying turkeys a lot longer than I have and told me he buries it under his compost pile. His rational being that it’s organic and will eventually disperse, if the raccoons and skunks don’t get into it first. I don’t have a compost (God will smite me for this I know) and I could spit across my yard if I tried hard enough. Together, we ruled out the town dump as an option because transporting the vat would be courting disaster. By then, the oil was dark and smelly and who knew what had already drowned in there. It was so slippery and semi-solid in a tipsy way, like defective jell-o. Joe and I determined that the vacant lot next door to me was the obvious and perfect alternative — dubious as that sounds. He added ‘And if you have any used motor oil – what the hell – throw that in too.’

If you take care of your peanut oil –- unlike me — you can get three maybe four deep-fries from it. My mistake was not cleaning it once it cooled down. This is pretty easy — just pour it through a fine sieve or cheesecloth to remove the impurities then funnel it back into the jug it came in and store it in a cool place.

Also — while you’re cooking — control the temperature of the oil and keep it below its smoking point. This way you’ll get more fries out of it but most important, it’ll keep it from catching fire. And the more times you use it, the lower is smoking point becomes. Another thing — prep your bird well because water and oil don’t mix. So make it as dry as possible — inside and out before you rub it with spices and ease it into the pot. Oil naturally darkens after use, which isn’t a problem until it starts to smell bad. Then it’ll foam, smoke and become even more combustible. I suggest buying new oil before it gets to this point. You don’t have to use peanut oil if you don’t want to. Corn, safflower or even canola will do. Peanut is just recommended because of its high smoking point, flavor and besides, it’s what they use down in Louisiana.

I did end up burying my rancid oil next to a sassafras tree on the vacant lot next. By that time, the oil had gotten so thick it kind of plopped into the hole and just sat there quivering. And I hadn’t dug deep enough because the earth was nearly frozen. So it oozed over, loose and some of it escaped. I shoveled dirt back over it as fast as I could and even threw in some used cat litter for good measure. What a mess. I marked it with a piece of firewood because it’d be just my luck that the property owner, my neighbor, the one with the Italian loafers, finds it, stumbles, falls and twists an ankle or something. Then I’d really be in trouble and have to replace his shoes again.