Thanksgiving help is on the way! Do you have a question or story for The Splendid Table's Turkey Confidential radio program?

How can you get out of cooking Thanksgiving dinner altogether? I'm exhausted already and haven't even begun to make plans!

No no... not Denny's! Everyone knows the proper place for victims of Turkey Disasters to dine is the Flying Dragon Well-Hong Kong Jade Wok. Always order the duck from column three.

Fa ra ra ra ra .......

and always leave the lamp lit in the picture window.

boy, this is going to come in handy! I need all the help I can get sometimes when it comes to making big family dinners! LOL

great article

All you need to answer for me is where is the easy button? this is my first year and I'm going to do it all. From green bean casserole to stuffing the bird with the well.. duh.. stuffing. :D I am terrified. :D

I've cooked lots of birds before but never for the huge family gathering. For years I have tried to discover how to end up with a turkey breast that is as flavorful, tender, and JUICY as the dark meat on the bird. Even as a kid I could never stand white meat (chicken or turkey). It tastes like dry, chewy cardboard. I'm stuck with the drumstick (full of those long bone slivers). Actually my dad and I eat the extra turkey necks and gizzards that get thrown into the bottom of the pan to flavor the drippings. They are delicious.
But I keep searching for that secret method of roasting a bird with all-over tender juicy results.

What about barding the bird?

I love Turkey Day - and I love hosting it too.

Lynne, help!

My husband and I just bought our first home in March, and my mother informed me at that time that we would be hosting Thanksgiving. No panicking just yet -- my parents have hosted Thanksgiving since I was in high school, and since I started college the cooking duties have been shifting to me, especially since I presented the notion of brining the turkey (my mother's response: "You're on your own, kid"). Overall I've been successful, and Mom will still be pitching in to help with the shopping, planning, and bringing of family recipes. The problem lies in that my in-laws live on a farm only a few miles away, so not inviting them was not an option. (It'll just be the six of us; my husband and I are both from small families and all the other family in the area will be with the "other" relatives.) Don't worry, we all get along great, and this really is a food question: My in-laws each have had various health problems, most recently and severely my mother in law's heart developed enough irregularities that she had a defibrillator installed -- and this means she can't have salt. At all. Period. If you can taste the salt, it's out. She and my father-in-law also suffer from diabetes (him more severely) and neither can have alcohol (at all, period) due to medications that they're on.

First question: can I still brine? My understanding of osmosis would suggest to me that the salt mostly goes back out again, leaving the flavor behind (I've brined the last 3 years and the bird has never tasted salty) and it's worked so well, I hate to mess with success.

Second: do you have any low-salt appetizers to recommend? My mother traditionally makes a dip involving black olives and capers and anchovies that I figure is right out.

Third: how accommodating do I need to be in terms of sides -- especially the stuffing, but also the vegetable (traditional green-bean casserole seems like Salt City to me)? Should I just make two of everything? Much my dilemma comes from the aforementioned family recipes, in particular my grandmother's stuffing recipe which to my mother Is Not Optional. To some extent I feel as if I am trapped between breaking my own mother's heart, and literally stopping my mother-in-law's.

Lynne,

this is my second ever turkey and I have three questions:

1) Does it matter that I won't be stuffing the turkey? Do I need to truss it or alter the cooking time or anything like that?
2) How do you know when to add the roast vegetables? (Potatoes, carrots, parsnips, shallots). I feel they all take different times and certainly won't take anywhere near as long as the turkey will. So do I roast them together, separate from the turkey in another pan, added to the oven later on?
3) Your gravy recipe sounds lovely. I'm just a tad confused: You say the broth can be made the day before, but then say the neck, giblets etc for the broth should be removed after you stick the turkey in the oven. Do I remove them the day before, make the broth then, refrigerate it and continue with your recipe the following day once I've roasted the turkey?

Any suggestions are greatly welcomed!

Betsy - THANK YOU SO MUCH! That all sounds like great advice, just what I needed and you make a good point about the veg tasting the same if I did it with the turkey. I'll just drizzle olive oil and maybe some rosemary and do them on their own. I was going to make my first ever gravy today and was very excited about the prospect, but my boyfriend accidentally left the giblets out overnight for about 6 hours so I don't think I should now! Hopefully I can pick some up today at the grocery store. (My entire meal so is organic and free range, down to the eggs for the pie - so hopefully I can keep the giblets to that too).

I have one other question about the pie, and it's such a newbie question: should I make it today? Again, I can't remember if my mother did it on the day or the day before. And if it was on the day is there any benefit to making the pastry today ready to bake tomorrow?

Thanks once again for the words of wisdom!

I have a new Jenn Air double oven. It has convection, roast, and bake settings. I have cooked turkeys for years in my traditional oven but am unsure what setting to use this year. Will the convection setting yield a moister turkey? Or do I use roast? I plan to stuff the turkey. What temperature(s) should I use.
Any advice will be much appreciated. Thanks.

Please comment on the use of "roasting bags" or other means of "keeping in moisture"? My mother-in-law was always convinced that the turkey would never cook if it was not cooked in a lidded roasting pan. Then she would bemoan her soggy gravy. Well, when you steam the turkey (which is what you effectively do when cooking it in a tightly closed container), you get soggy gravy! I have a friend who likewise insists on using roasting bags. I consider this anathema: it isn't roast if it isn't cooked in dry heat!

I was taught that what makes meat moist is *NOT* water vapor but is fat. Breast meat contains little fat and hence is dry. The way to counteract this is to get fat into the breast by using an injection baster or lardoons.

The real secret to a moist bird to to use a fresh turkey: one that has never been frozen. They can be hard to find: one Thanksgiving I ordered "fresh" turkey and on the day before picked up a rock-hard, frozen-solid "chilled" turkey. Apparently "chilled" birds can be held as low as 30 degrees and still be sold as "fresh".

I always put the bird into a 500 degree oven, turning it down to 375 after 20 minutes. I put a little water in the pan to keep the drippings from burning, and use an injection baster to moisten the breast meat, and cover the breast with foil for the last hour of cooking. Starting off in the 500 degree oven cuts up to an hour off the cooking time and results in a marvelous browned, crispy skin (my favorite part!)