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My grandmother, bless her soul, made some of the best turkey for Thanksgiving ever. She always worked on it starting early and on Turkeyday we'd feast. Never dry, full of flavor, and amazing. I miss her dearly, and I miss her Thanksgiving dinners with 20+ people crammed into her home.

Aliens

Not cooking the whole bird in the oven opens up some better possibilities!

Love Kenji from back in his Serious Eats days

Add a lot of butter too

I like spatch-cocking or deboning the turkey.

Agreed. It does get confusing when everyone has their “failsafe” way to make the perfect turkey and they all differ significantly. (Mine is to cook it breast down. Looks a little different on the platter, but the breast meat gets basted by the fat from the thighs, and carving is a breeze.)

One day a year, mom. Live a little.

I actually just use @sazeracla.bsky.social’s turkey gumbo recipe with minor modifications! which I will absolutely be posting

The serious eats website exists for all of us!

I STG the "turkey sucks" people are also the "spatchcock/sous vide/whatever? I don't want no witchcraft in my turkey" people. They'll dump a half frozen bird into hot oil over a 1 billion BTU burner, tho, 'cause going to the burn ward on Thanksgiving is traditional.

It is a lot of work though! Most people don't know how to cook, basically. Or never took a laboratory science class to model their cooking on despite not being a chef. :P

YouTube, patience and practice can make decent cooks of anyone. NGL, the latter two are work, but the game is free now.

I use the searing hot tiles underneath, low temp oven method to get well done dark meat and juicy, not overcooked breast meat. I did a trial run last week & have 1/2 a juicy breast in the freezer as backup (18 for dinner & 8 weekend houseguests)

If you have a green egg, smoke it. Preferably with bacon draped over the top.