ROSALIA, Wash. – A nonprofit and firefighter-owned company is serving 83 smoked turkeys for Thanksgiving.
Volunteer firefighters Dominic Petrovich, his wife, Rebecca, Tyler Couron and his fiancé Paisha are the only workers. Rattling Pans BBQ started in Rosalia 2022, by roasting a pig to earn money for Rosalia and Palouse-area volunteer firefighters.
“Then people started asking us if we could barbeque for their weddings or graduations. It bloomed from there. Then we came up with the idea for turkeys for Thanksgiving, and what we could do with that money,” said Dominic Petrovich.
The nonprofit started buying gifts for Rosalia’s Giving Tree.
“Then it started to expand. We’ve been able to help in the community of St. John as well. That’s what the profits go to—the Giving Trees for children’s gifts,” said Petrovich.
Rattling Pans sold 33 smoked turkeys in 2023. This more than doubled to 65. Then, for the last two years, Rattling Pans has taken more than 80 orders for the holiday.
Customers say these 12-to-15 pound turkeys hold on to a lot of juice, with a perfectly crisp skin.
“We brine them for about 12 hours then take them out of the brine and smoke them for about 13 hours. It’s a saltwater brine with bay leaves. We use olive oil, paprika, oregano, rosemary and thyme. We baste them in that. Then, while we cook, we spritz them every hour or hour and a half. They are ready, hot and fresh on Thanksgiving Day. We send out texts when the turkeys are ready. Usually, it’s around 12:00 noon to 1:00 on Thanksgiving Day. We’ve got people who are buying up to five turkeys at a time,” said Petrovich.
The nonprofit will likely stick to 83 Thanksgiving orders until it can build another smoker.
“We have one we can put 49 on, then another one can take 30. So, if we can build another one we could add about 30 more. It costs a lot to build one with the grate and the fire boxes. We’ve been fortunate that the company I work for donated the tanks that we built them out of. So, we didn’t have that expense. Our message for our barbecue is about sharing with the community and if we do more things locally, we don’t need as much help from the government. I think we can do more for ourselves than the government can do for us,” said Petrovich.
The Thanksgiving turkeys go for $60.00 each.
If you got your order in, you can pick up your turkey in Rosalia Thanksgiving Day from about 12:00 noon to 1:00.
Rattling Pans also has served barbecue at the Buck Canyon Barn Pumpkin Patch the last two years, to support the community and area fire departments.
