Thanksgiving planning with the USDA

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I was not born in this fair land and thus wasn’t raised with the Thanksgiving tradition. My ability to roast a turkey has been stunted too by the fact that my kid refused to eat turkeys for years because she thought they were sweet and maligned. (We ate a chicken instead.)

So the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s one-week Thanksgiving countdown guide, which just plopped into our in-tray, is just the ticket. The release informs us that anyone with questions about safe turkey preparation can get them answered during a Nov. 19 USDA Thanksgiving Facebook chat (read more about it and submit questions in advance at www.usda.gov/live).

And the guide offers all kinds of other advice -- some of it most useful (how to store the turkey, when to thaw it, how to cook it) and some perhaps more than even I need.

‘Plan your menu and gather recipes,’ it suggests. ‘Check your pantry and see what you have.’

And: ‘Make a shopping list of needed ingredients.’

Some of the tips I had no idea about. Like, it tells you that five days before Thanksgiving you should sanitize all the countertops in your kitchen with bleach. Four days before -- four! -- it recommends you set the Thanksgiving table and bring in the chairs. (My cats would probably like that. Serving dishes are nice and round and fit a curled-up cat body very snugly).

Three days before, make the side dishes and rolls. Such efficiency! What you’d expect of the government, really.

One day before: ‘Check again to make sure you have all the ingredients you need to prepare your holiday meal. Although stores are probably crowded, buying needed ingredients now is essential.’

On Thanksgiving eve, ‘Don’t even think of pulling an all-nighter with your turkey. It’s not safe to cook a turkey all night at 200 degrees F.’ Hmm, I personally was planning to bake mine in a hay box at 80 degrees for a week.

Ah, it’s easy to mock, especially when one’s ignorant, isn’t it? A food writer just informed us that cooking turkey at 200 degrees overnight was once all the rage, and for all I know there’s a turkey hay-box recipe in our archives somewhere. And really, ever since I heard a story of some folks who burned down their home after trying to incinerate their Christmas tree by putting the pointy end in the fireplace and slowly feeding it in..well, there may be no limits to the human capacity for dunderheadedness.

If you’re struggling on Thanksgiving day itself, with questions left dangling even after the Nov. 19 Facebook chat, you can always call the USDA Meat and Poultry hot line at (888) MPHotline between 8.a.m. and 2 p.m. Eastern time. Or go online and ask questions at AskKaren.gov.

-- Rosie Mestel