WILLIAMSBURG — Ulvia Barcacl Aguirre, her husband and three children have lived without heat and gas since the end of September.
But that doesn't mean they'll go without turkey on Thanksgiving.
In the last two months they've cooked with hot plates and kept warm with space heaters, generating a huge electric bill, she said.
"I cannot live like this, I'm so depressed," she said.
It's the third time this year they've lost basic services in their Wilson Avenue home, she said.
"I cannot cry anymore. I'm numb," she said.
Thanks to an industrial-sized Cajun deep fryer that sizzles four birds in half half an hour — being operated by Churches United for Fair Housing and The Solano Family Foundation — the Aguirres will still have their feast for the holiday.
The golden-brown fried bird briefly brought a smile to her face Wednesday afternoon as she sat in her kitchen entertaining her one-year-old daughter Marina.
Barcacl Aguirre had never tasted fried turkey before and admits it was better then she expected.
Workers at the building's management office of 629 Wilson Avenue LLC couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
The Solanos and Churches United have been helping folks in need for years, but it was just three years ago that they started delivering fully cooked turkeys.
It used to deliver frozen ones, until nuns at the Epiphany Roman Catholic Church soup kitchens started asking for them to be cooked, said Joe Solano, 40, whose family started the foundation.
This year they'll be donating 300 fried turkeys and 200 frozen ones.
Solano uses his signature marinade to give the turkeys their extra special flavor — 24 hours before they're dropped in the sizzling caldron of hot oil, each turkey gets injected with a blend of butter, Cajun spices, cayenne pepper, Worcester sauce, vinegar and garlic powder.
Volunteers started the fryer up Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. and were cooking until 4 a.m. on Wednesday. They restarted the fryer at 8 a.m. and planned on sizzling turkeys until the wee hours of Thanksgiving morning in the courtyard of the San Damiano Mission at 85 North 15th Street in Williamsburg.
"It's a lot of work," Solano said.
While most of the turkeys will get distributed to families with no stoves through food pantries in Bed-Stuy, Bushwick and Williamsburg, some they hand-deliver.
"It's not acceptable not to be able to cook on Thanksgiving, not to have heat on Thanksgiving," said Jerry Dickens, 33, an organizer at the tenant advocacy group Churches United for Fair Housing.
"The least we can do is to be able to provide a turkey. But that's not enough. There's still more work on the ground to be done."
