it's a turkey, people. you're supposed to be smarter than it is.
all the hoopla - every year, without fail - over how to cook a turkey is explanation enough why there's no peace in the middle east and why our national debt is in the trillions (and climbing). if we can't even cook dinner, it's hopeless.
cooking a turkey is not the rocket science that everybody seems to think it is. basically what you need is a turkey and an oven.
you can argue all day, if it makes you happy, over whether to baste or not. whether to brine or not. whether to stuff, whether to unstuff. cover with foil/don't cover with foil. fresh herbs, dried herbs, no herbs. (speaking of no herbs, i had a great-uncle once named herb. well, herbert, to be exact. nobody in my family could agree on which herbs, if any, to rub under (over?) the skin of the turkey, but we sure could agree on this - don't invite uncle herb(ert) to dinner.)
what kind of salt - regular, kosher, or sea - is one of the newer entries into the GREAT TURKEY DEBATE. olive oil vs. butter is also gaining some attention.
once the turkey is done, the science is far from over. now you gotta figure out when to carve it........immediately, 5 minutes from now, 10 minutes from now, 30 minutes from now, or never. norman rockwell was a fan of the latter.
i threw a naked turkey into the oven one year with my eyes still closed from sleep. i remembered to put it in a pan, but that was all i remembered to do. several hours later, it smelled like heaven in here. coupla hours after that and it tasted like it, too. (i thought about calling the butterball people and rubbing it in their faces, but rub them with what - salt? herbs? dried?..... )
