12/19/97

SNET Internet's Thanksgiving Special

... For all you holiday chefs out there, take a few tips from this reader's hilarious 'cookbook' ...

TIP: EAT OUT THIS CHRISTMAS by Nancy of New Haven

I have some advice for those of you gearing up to cook your first Christmas turkey. Luckily for you, I just made my first Thanksgiving meal and can share with you invaluable lessons about preparing a feast fit for human consumption!

Tip: Don't aim too high. If it's really good, you'll have to do this again next year.

My husband Jim talked me into inviting five people to my first Thanksgiving meal, then attempted to loosen me up with a funny little story.

"I remember one of my mom's Thanksgiving dinners," he said, as we planned the menu. "She left the turkey in the oven way too long. When she pulled it out, it looked like a giant, gold raisin. Ha, ha!"

Tip: Send your husband to the grocery store for any last-minute items the evening before the actual holiday, when the stores are the most crowded they've been in 10 months.

The real problem with all the help you get is that within minutes after getting some advice, another source will give you information that is diametrically opposed to what you just heard.

My co-worker Kelly advised me to buy an 18- to 20-pound bird for six people.

"People like to take the leftovers home with them," she said.

"You bought a 19-pound bird?!" another friend said, appalled. "Whoa!"

Kelly is a wonderful cook, so I believed her, even though her step-by-step advice was delivered in the suspiciously calm tone of a 911 operator. She cracked just once, when we discussed preparing the turkey for roasting.

"You can preheat the oven while you wash the turkey, " Kelly said.

"You have to wash it?" I asked.

"Yeeess," she replied, calmly. "Just take the little sprayer thing in your sink and rinse the turkey, inside and outside."

"I don't have a sprayer in my sink," I said. "How about I just toss the turkey in the tub and give it a hot shower."

"No hot water! Oh my God. You're all going to end up in the emergency room!"

Tip: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be accessed easily through their website: www.cdc.gov.

You can overreact to the Salmonella thing, I learned. Jim's father related to me the story of a friend's first Thanksgiving dinner. When she opened the oven door after an hour or two to check on the bird she found it FOAMING. Turns out she used dish soap to wash out the turkey.

"Can you believe that?" Jim's father said. "Ha, ha!"

Tip: Send your father-in-law to the convenience store for any last-minute items on the actual holiday. He'll pay $13 for a packet of gravy mix, but hey, that's the price of convenience!

About the only universal advice I got was to make darn sure I removed the plastic bags containing the giblets from the bird before sticking it in the oven. That's why, at 7 a.m. on a day when I would normally sleep 'til 10 I was standing at my kitchen sink, shining a Mag-Lite into one of the orifices (I didn't want to know which one) of a 19-pound turkey.

Tip: Never, ever, illuminate the inside of a turkey. It's disturbing.

After a brief struggle with the bird, I located and extracted the giblet bags. One was mushy; the other contained something that felt like a frozen kielbasa. Giblets, I'd been told, make wonderful gravy. Or, I could cook them up for my two cats. Or save them for turkey soup stock. Oh, those versatile giblets!

Tip: Toss the giblets into the trash. Immediately.

Once I had the bird washed, stuffed and safely in the oven there wasn't much more I could do. I felt a little helpless.

"I'll just drink a lot of wine before dinner, then I won't care how it comes out," I told Jim.

He advised against this and related the story of how, years ago, he decided to cook some friends a late-night Thanksgiving turkey. He put it in the oven then proceeded to get drunk. He awoke to his cat's licking his eyelids and a house full of smoke. It wasn't a total loss, however. Jim had a friend photograph him tossing the charred bird out his third-story window and made Christmas cards with the picture that said, "This holiday season, I'm flipping you the bird!"

Tip: No matter what happens, make the best of it. --- Nancy M

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