Author: Mark Linton

<a href="http://www.cooksillustrated.com/turkeyhelp/top10.html">TurkeyHelp-from the editors of Cook's Illustrated</a>: &ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t even put the summer clothes away for the season and it&rsquo;s already time to plan the annual cooking of the bird. You do recall that last year&rsquo;s turkey was, well, a real turkey. The meat was tough, dry, and tasteless. How to prevent this year&rsquo;s meal from going to the birds? Here&rsquo;s our list of the top 10 mistakes to avoid.&rdquo;

<a href="http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20031125.html">Does bottled drinking water go bad?</a>: &ldquo;According to the International Bottled Water Association, the FDA has not established a shelf life for water, so you can store those bottles indefinitely. As long as the packaging is intact and unopened, you shouldn&rsquo;t need to worry about any type of bacteria or microorganisms growing in the water. If the bottle has been opened, however, it can grow bacteria and algae if it is not consumed within 2 weeks.&rsquo;

<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Midwest/11/28/thanksgiving.fire.ap/index.html">CNN.com - Turkey frying ends in disaster - Nov. 28, 2003</a>: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know how it happened,&rdquo; Fickett said. &ldquo;My wife just had a baby, so I said I&rsquo;d take care of the turkey.&rdquo;

<a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/11/11/state2012EST7017.DTL">Scientists link global warming and wine quality</a>: &ldquo;Global warming may become a worldwide catastrophe, but at least the wine should be good.&rdquo;



<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&amp;node=&amp;contentId=A20608-2003Nov10&amp;notFound=true">Serving Wine Globally Warmed</a>: &ldquo;For wine lovers, global warming may not be such a bad thing: Research indicates that warming temperatures are improving the quality of fine wines.&rdquo;

<a href="http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20031117/kitchen.html">Discovery Channel :: World&rsquo;s Oldest Kitchen Identified</a>: &ldquo;Stone tools dating to 2.6-2.5 million years ago, along with associated broken animal bones, have been found in Gona, Ethiopia, at a place that served as the earliest known controlled setting for food preparation, according to an article released by Southern Connecticut State University and confirmed by the Gona Palaeoanthropological Research Project&hellip;



&ldquo;At this very early date in hominid history, there is no evidence for structures. The food preparation site at Gona would have been outdoors next to a water source.&rdquo;

Breakfast was a slice of banana quick bread.



<ins datetime="2003-11-30T18:29:00-05:00">I had a <a href="http://www.sierra-nevada.com/beers/celebrationale.html" title="Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale">Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale</a> for lunch. Dinner was left over roast turkey and dressing with gravy and another <a href="http://www.sierra-nevada.com/beers/celebrationale.html" title="Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale">Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale</a>.</ins>

<img src="http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/h/mhl100/images/turkeys.jpg" width="341" height="256" alt="Photo of my neighbors four turkeys" />



My neighbor has four turkeys. We thought he was raising them for Thanksgiving, but they were running around our yard this morning, so I guess that we were wrong.



I do not know what kind of turkeys they are. They do not appear to be domestic turkeys, but the do not look like wild turkeys either.

I had a bowl of cold cereal with a banana and a glass of orange juice for breakfast this morning. I weighed in at 162 pounds.



I had a <a href="http://www.sierra-nevada.com/beers/celebrationale.html" title="Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale">Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale</a> for lunch.



<ins datetime="2003-11-29T19:30:00-05:00">Dinner was roast turkey with dressing and mashed potatoes with gravy and cloved onions with two glasses of <a href="http://www.bolla.com/view_wine.asp?nWID=4" title="Bolla Wines of Italy - Open Up">Bolla Pinot Grigio</a>.</ins>

The real problem with going somewhere for Thanksgiving — even relatives — is that you do not end up with any leftovers. No turkey stock. No turkey sandwiches. No turkey soup. No turkey pot pie. No turkey salad. No turkey à la king. No turkey casserole. No turkey tetrazini. To remedy that, today Gretchen and I are going to have our own Thanksgiving.



We are going to roast<span style="font-size: smaller; vertical-align: super;">&dagger;</span> a 15.93 pound <a href="http://www.butterball.com/en/index.jsp" title="Butterball - Home">Butterball&reg;</a>. It has been thawing in the refrigerator since Tuesday. We will be roasting it in a 325&deg;F oven for 10 to 12 minutes per pound &mdash; 2 hours and 40 minutes to 3 hours and 10 minutes &mdash; allocating up to 4 hours to account for the possibility that the bird is not completely thawed to begin with. Regardless of the time, we will let it cook until an instant read thermometer, inserted into the thickest part of the thigh, reads 180&deg;F. We are going to dress, not stuff, the bird, so we will prepare the dressing while the turkey cooks, putting it into the oven with the turkey during the last 45 minutes. At that point, we can also tent the bird in foil to prevent the breast from drying out while it finishes. We are planning on having supper at around 5 o&rsquo;clock, so we will start around 1 o&rsquo;clock. Since we are not going to stuff the bird, we are going to put some chopped onions, carrots, and celery, along with a little parsley, sage, and thyme into the cavity to perfume the meat and flavor the juices.



<ins datetime="2003-11-29T19:38:00-05:00">Well, we cooked the turkey until it read 180&deg;F &mdash; after 3 hours and 15 minutes &mdash; and it was still bleeding. <img src="http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/h/mhl100/images/angry.png" height="18" width="18" alt="Angry" /> We put it back in for an hour and it was done. From now on, always poke the bird to see if the juices run clear before taking it out of the oven.</ins>

<span style="font-size: smaller; vertical-align: super;">&dagger;</span> &mdash; Roasting: Traditionally roasting means cooking by exposure to radiant heat on a spit before an open fire. Very few people have <em>actually</em> roasted since the invention of the oven. Nowadays, we mean cooking using dry heat in an oven when we say roasting. To make sure that we get the dry heat, we need to make sure that the meat is resting on a rack to keep it out of the juices so that the heat can circulate completely around the meat.

<em>Via <a href="http://www.adrants.com/2003_11_23_archive.php#107004603526456719" title="Adrants Steve Hall's Advertising Weblog including, internet marketing and online advertising with news, commentary, and opinion.">Adrants</a>:</em>



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