The 7 Deadly Sins of Making Thanksgiving Dinner

While guests with special dietary needs have some responsibility to tell their host what they can and can’t eat, you should double-check with everyone you invite to make sure. How you react to people making special dietary demands is up to you as host/hostess. You could make a special vegan meal, or you could say, “I’m so sorry to hear you won’t be coming this year.”

But take special care with allergies: A vegetarian having to settle for green beans instead of Tofurkey isn’t a life-or-death matter, but hidden pecans in the stuffing could be.

You can’t have too much food at Thanksgiving, but you can definitely have too little, so overestimate everything. Think of it as planning for each guest to both over-eat and have a second full meal to take home. (Here’s a guide to help you with the math.)

The corollary rule to this is “make sure you have to-go containers ready for your guests.” Everyone wants to take home some turkey and stuffing to make a nice sandwich at midnight.

If you’ve planned your menu and cooking time correctly, you should have calculated the right size turkey for your party, but that doesn’t mean you can just waltz into the supermarket on the day before Thanksgiving and pick it up. This advice applies every year, but this year it’s particularly important, as turkey shortages are expected due to avian flu outbreaks.

If you’re going with a frozen turkey, you can keep it frozen for up to a year without a problem. But if you’re going with a fresh bird, you can only keep it in the fridge for a maximum of two days, according to the FDA. According to the National Turkey Federation, there is no quality difference between a fresh and frozen turkey, so you should probably go with the frozen bird to be on the safe side (unless you’re too snobby for that).

Maybe there isn’t a quality difference between a frozen and fresh turkey, but that doesn’t apply if you defrost your turkey incorrectly. Luckily, though, defrosting a turkey is easy. The two best methods for defrosting turkeys are refrigerator thawing and cold-water thawing, although you could theoretically use a microwave, if you had a gigantic microwave. (You can, however, use a sous-vide circulator to speed up the process, provided you have a big enough water bath.) Here are the rules for each, according to Butterball:

Refrigerator thawing

• Thaw turkey breast side up, in an unopened wrapper on a tray in the fridge (40 degrees F or below).
• Allow at least one day of thawing for every 4 pounds of turkey.
• Keep turkey in original wrapper and place on tray.
• Use turkey within four days after thawing.

Cold-water thawing

• Thaw turkey breast side down, in an unopened wrapper, with enough cold water to cover your turkey completely.
• Change water every 30 minutes and if turkey cannot be completely covered, rotate every 30 minutes to keep the turkey chilled.
• You can expect 30 minutes of thawing per pound of turkey.

There is no “warm-water thawing” option. I knew someone who bathed her turkey in hot water in her bathtub on Thanksgiving. While it did defrost the bird, and she was able to cook it fine, everyone who ate it got food poisoning. When the best anyone can say about your Thanksgiving meal is, “At least no one died,” you’ve failed Thanksgiving.

You can screw up a few Thanksgiving side dishes here and there, but do not mess up the turkey. Roasting a turkey can seem like a daunting challenge, but it’s basically just like roasting a huge chicken—it’s not terribly complicated. But that doesn’t mean it’s foolproof. Here are only some of the common pitfalls to avoid when cooking a turkey:

• Opening the oven door too much: I know you want to check out it, but leave it alone. (Remember: If you’re looking, you’re not cooking.)
• Not using a meat thermometer: The temperature of ovens can vary, so make sure you check that it’s fully cooked before serving
• Not letting your turkey rest after cooking.

If you’re new to roasting a turkey, I’m going to give you a tip: You can call 1-800-BUTTERBALL on Thanksgiving and a very nice person will answer any questions you have for free. The first year I roasted a turkey at a Friendsgiving, a nice lady from Illinois talked me through the entire process—I mean, I was on the phone with her for at least an hour as she held my hand through thick and thin. I may have even fallen in love with her.

There are a variety of “alternative” ways to prepare turkey, and every year, a bunch of people try them, and every year, they burn down their damn houses.

I know roasted turkey can be dry and flavorless, but that’s turkey’s nature. It’s supposed to be that way: That’s what the gravy is for, and it’s what people want. If Thanksgiving dinner was supposed to delicious, it would be curry, so don’t smoke, deep-fry, grill, or otherwise try to zhuzh up your turkey. It only leads to heartbreak and house fires. [Editor’s note: If you want a (safely prepared) turkey that is not dry and flavorless, try smoking one on the charcoal grill, or use this buttermilk brine to keep it moist while roasting.]

And don’t even come near me with a “turducken.” That’s straight nonsense.