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The following messages have been posted since 11/22/97

Name: Allen (afoster51@cox.net) Date: 11/22/07 04:42:32 PST

Memoir:
While in the service we lived in England and found our English Cooker to be way too small to accomodate American pans, so in cooking the turkey, we had to slightly tilt the pan. We had invited a number of friends over and was visiting in the living room when we noticed a stream of liquid jetting across the floor. It was the turkey basting from the cooker. It had worked it's way out of the cooker, across the kitchen floor, down the hall, across the living room, and was headed for the door. It was the dryest turkey we ever had.

Name: Sharlene (babushka1111@hotmail.com) Date: 11/22/06 13:27:08 PST

Memoir:
My daughter decided to host thanksgiving at her house with all the relatives. We were just about to start our day with preparing the turkey and beginning to cook it for hours. Well when she put it in the oven, she accidentally pushed the self clean button, where the oven locks itself and cleans for about five hours. No one noticed until we checked it a few hours later, so we suddenly found ourself trying to pry the oven door open but nothing seemed to work. The men began to bring out their screwdrivers and drills in an attempt to salvage the bird. But in the end when we finally did get it out, the oven was destroyed but we had a very clean turkey.

Name: patty (pattywahoo@yahoo.com) Date: 11/15/06 10:28:57 PST

Memoir:
growing up in Maryland and the daughter of a veterinarian, we never knew what animals were to be in our household, at this particular thanksgiving we had 3 dogs 2 cats a bird and a rabbit...My Mom was an excellent cook and we always had company in DROVES for thanksgiving..this one year mom thawed the turkey 38 lbs or bigger in the downstarirs fridge (basement)....when she went to the fridge to get the turkey t-giving morn, she was horrified to find it gone...poof! vanished!...she screamed for my dad, who promptly followed a hunch and a trail out to our back yard...where 2 of the 3 dogs were dining on RAW turkey...the fride had the old style pull handle and one helped the other and they dragged this bird to the back yard...there was snow on the ground and 2 full dogs...we had a housefull of guests enjoying tons of sidedishes and slabs of BACON that year!!!!

Name: mary kane king (mkk130@bellsouth.net) Date: 11/21/05 08:22:50 PST

Memoir:
My cousin and I decided to make thanksgiving dinner for my elderly grandmother and her friend. Well, my cousin just had a little kitten she was nursing back to health die on her, and I was in anguish over the first Thanksgiving of being divorced. We started in on the hard lemonades at about 9am. I was in the kitchen violently mashing the potatoes, and my cousin offered me a job with a little less motor control required. Well, she wasnt doing too well herself, because she burnt the rolls. We threw them out the back door for the birds, but we were both in pile on the floor before serving time. We managed to gather ourselves together and put out the food, but we suddenly remembered that Betty (granny's friend) had an alcoholic son. We didnt want her to know we had been drinking, so we acted really "well". I always wondered if the slow motion you go into when you are drunk is as obvious as it seems! The food really turned out well, but no rolls.

Name: Megan (jadetiger103@hotmail.com) Date: 11/18/05 14:07:22 PST

Memoir:
This is a story that my grandmother told me just today. A long time ago my grandfather had killed a wild turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. My grandmother had never cooked a wild one before, but thought it would be the same as cooking a frozen one. Little did she know that she was wrong. She started cooking the turkey when my grandfather said they were going to spend the holiday up in their cabin in the woods. She checked on the turkey before they left and thought it looked done. When they got to the cabin and started to cut into the turkey, they found it wasn't done. So she put it back in the oven and after 9 hours of checking on it, found that it was no longer pink. Even then, when they cut into it the turkey was tough as leather. They hardly ate any of it before they threw the rest of it out and just feasted on the side dishes and pies.

Name: Megan (jadetiger103@hotmail.com) Date: 11/18/05 14:07:06 PST

Memoir:
This is a story that my grandmother told me just today. A long time ago my grandfather had killed a wild turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. My grandmother had never cooked a wild one before, but thought it would be the same as cooking a frozen one. Little did she know that she was wrong. She started cooking the turkey when my grandfather said they were going to spend the holiday up in their cabin in the woods. She checked on the turkey before they left and thought it looked done. When they got to the cabin and started to cut into the turkey, they found it wasn't done. So she put it back in the oven and after 9 hours of checking on it, found that it was no longer pink. Even then, when they cut into it the turkey was tough as leather. They hardly ate any of it before they threw the rest of it out and just feasted on the side dishes and pies.

Name: Megan Lorraine Carey (CareyM@MontpelierVt.org) Date: 11/07/05 09:13:58 PST

Memoir:
Makela almost shriveled up the turkey by letting it cook too long Makela spent too much of her time cooking and cleaning instead of spending time with me I almost and nearly started crying from holiday heartache!

Name: Megan Lorraine Carey (CareyM@MontpelierVt.org) Date: 11/07/05 09:13:39 PST

Memoir:
Makela almost shriveled up the turkey by letting it cook too long Makela spent too much of her time cooking and cleaning instead of spending time with me I almost and nearly started crying from holiday heartache!

Name: David (Bornus@winternet.com) Date: 11/26/03 11:40:23 PST

Memoir:
It was the Thanksgiving of 2001, and my wife and I had invited all of my siblings and their families to our new house, being the "hosts" for the first time. We set up the table and places the night before, and were up early in the morning getting everything ready in the kitchen. My wife used every piece of cookware we owned to prepare the meal. Minutes before everyone arrived, she told me to mix up some instant gravy. I looked for a pot to use but all I could find was a blue glass Anchor-Hocking baking pan. So I used that on the stove. I made up the gravy just fine, and was stirring it for the last time when everybody showed up at the door and starting coming in. Just at that exact moment, there was a loud "pop" and suddenly the baking pan was gone, and instead there was a cascade of brown gravy and broken blue glass all over the stove top and counter, and I had gravy all over my front. So that's how I said hello as my relatives walked into the kitchen! We cleaned up all the broken glass from everywhere, and even had to pick some shards off the top of the mashed potatoes, sitting in the other pot on the stove. I was worried that people might get food poisoning from broken glass, but everyone was ok. We improvised some gravy out of turkey grease and flour, and it was ok. To top it off, the turkey was still pink inside because my wife didn't thaw it out completely before cooking it, but fortunately my sister-in-law knew a trick, to cut the turkey breast in slits and turn on the broiler in the oven, and it cooked it up very quickly, in about a half hour. So everything worked out ok. We took a photo of the explosion on the stove top, because we knew we'd always want to remember that. As a final note, that night I came down with the flu, and sat up all night heaving in the bathroom. I felt pretty awful. So from now on I can be thankful that the thanksgivings we have aren't as bad as that one was. But still one looks back on it fondly, in a strange way.

Name: Randall (maui_me22@hotmail.com) Date: 01/24/02 13:19:19 PST

Memoir:
Thanksgiving 2001 - We had relatives from all over for turkey day. This year, my brother in law decided we would deep fry the bird, because he saw it on the internet and bought a cooker. Sounded fair enough, and much quicker I geuss. Well, inexperience took over real quick. First of all, he put the bird on when the oil wasn't nearly hot enough, so we had to take it out and it was a slimy oily bird. So we wiped it off with paper towels, and let the oil heat up. The second try, he found out there was too much oil, and it boiled over and made a huge mess, almost started a grease fire too. Good thing we took the advice of the manufacturer and did it outside. At that point, we had to turn the cooker off, and the bird was rendered useless. He won't be doing that again, not on Thanksgiving anyway!

Name: kepp (keppdogg@yahoo.com) Date: 11/17/01 15:36:26 PST

Memoir:
had thanksgiving dinner with mother-in-law. told her that I would cook everything, she just had to buy the food. She thought that I could not cook good cause she cant and she bought a complete turky dinner in a box. I was pissed off but we followed the directions anyway. the turkey was double baged and the ins said to take off the outer bag and leave the other bag on and put in oven. The turkey cooked for the set time and we even left it in longer, when we started to cut it the middle was still frozen and the gibblet bag was in the middle. we packet it up and took back to the store and got our money back and had pizza instead

Name: Dan Taylor (gourmet@dantenet.com) Date: 11/13/01 08:50:26 PST

Memoir:
It's the day after Thanksgiving and I'm looking forward to the leftover bounty that awaits me in the kitchen. Butternut squash soup, tons of turkey and stuffing, green bean casserole, the works. But first, a shower. Unbeknownst to me, a young Turkey Day houseguest had nearly broken the handle on the bathroom door. When I closed it to get my shower -- all alone in the house, mind you -- the handle broke and locked me in. A fact I discovered after a long, hot shower that filled the tiny, windlow-less bathroom with steam. Unable to get out of the bathroom on my own, I had to wait until my housemate returned from work and shopping... six hours later!
ng, veggies, cranberry sauce, olives and pies for dinner on Friday!

Name: Jennifer (eppermint-Ginn@webtv.net) Date: 11/26/99 19:15:09 PST

Memoir:
Thanksgiving of 1999, I invited my whole family over to spend it with everyone. I cooked all day long. We had a turkey and a ham and all the twimmings. Well, everything was done. (That's what thought.) I layed the turkey on the cutting board and got out my electric knife. I started cutting the turkey and here comes out some red liquid. So, i thought it was no big deal So i stted cutting the ham. It was frozen inside. I couldn't do anything else but cry. It was time to lead prayer. My husband asked me to, since it was my side of the family. Everyone bowed their heads when I started to pray. I didn't get a couple of words out when I started to cry. Nothing was going right. It was hard enough that my father had died a couple of years ago. It just made it worse. When I wiped my tears off and tried to start in prayer again, I couldn't help but to cry. But I thanked the Lord for my family that could be here and the food that we were about to eat, well the food that was done, and pray for the people that doedn't have any family on Thanksgiving day to be with. If it wasn't for my family I wouldn't know what I would have done. Thank you for letting me share my story.

Name: elaine (pick@tctc.com) Date: 11/22/99 16:28:21 PST

Memoir:
Dad always made the turkey and dressing, mixing pounds of dressing in the scoured, deep kitchen sink. It was time to do dishes after the great feast, but no one could find the sink plug...We improvised for the duration. Later that night, Dad was emptying the turkey carcass for storage and guess what he found! It wouldn't have been bad, except his sister in law is a germ freak and this has been a family secret for 30 years!

Name: maureen (m.maureen@angelfire.com) Date: 11/18/99 16:44:04 PST

Memoir:
add all the ingredients to the pumpkin pie. mix it and mix it ready to go into pan. cooking for hours wondering why the won't set. Forgot to add the eggs. LOL

Name: Brooke (brookeblanton@home.com) Date: 11/17/99 11:26:33 PST

Memoir:
Two years ago my mother was making Thanksgiving dinner for 15 people. She had finished everything except for the Sweet Potato casserole.
So she cooked the potatos like normal. And put them in a beautiful glass bowl for "presentation". After that she left them setting there. About 10 minutes later we all went into the kitchen to find Sweet Potato Casserole all over the floor.
my mother had left the Casserole on the hot stove top and the heat had shattered the bowl.
One side dish down 12 to go.

Name: christy (btsmcgee@aol.com) Date: 11/16/99 23:06:21 PST

Memoir:
I was letting the turkey thaw out in the sink & when I went in to check on it,My cat Booger was eating the breast meat! He only nibbled a little portion, so I washed it off & cooked it up! Nobody noticed because I carved it in the kitchen before presenting it to the guests! Needless to say, Booger did not get any leftovers, I figured he had his portion already!

Name: Sonya (sony7773@aol.com) Date: 10/20/99 21:02:31 PDT

Memoir:
I was so excied about serving Thanksgiving dinner to my new husband's family. Everything was cooked and my mother-in-law came into the kitchen to help carve the turkey. We opened the oven, took out the turkey and she said "what is this paper inside the turkey? Didn't you take out the giblets and neck? I was mortified. I have never cooked a turkey before. It was a good laugh for the whole family.

Name: shortcake3 (shortcake3@hotmail.com) Date: 12/04/98 08:55:20 PST

Memoir:
It was the night before thanksgiving and I was making sure we had everything we needed and we didn't have over half the stuff and then the stores were closed

Name: Danielle (danilue23@hotmail.com) Date: 11/24/98 06:44:20 PST

Memoir:
One year, my mom entrusted myself and my cousin to cook a turkey. BIG MISTAKE. You see, wee were only about seventeen years old so we had no clue how to cook a turkey, and mom left without giving us directions to cook it. We called everyone and anyone to see what we should do, but no one was home. We decided that we were bright teenagers, so we could figure it out.

We found a cookbook that had a "simple turkey recipe" in it. Well, everything started out okay. We had the oven preset, the pan was prepped, and we thought we had the turkey ready to go, but we were sadly mistakened. We left the turkey cooking in the kitchen, and we went out to watch T.V. We continued to check on the turkey, but never noticed that we failed to take the oven off preheat. When my mom came home she also revealed that we had forgotton to take the gibblet sac out of the cavity. So we had a fried turkey with all of the internal organs roasting inside.

Tip: Never-ever let a teen cook a turkey without the proper supervision.

Name: Lori (dynamic@badlands.4eyes.net) Date: 11/18/98 10:19:02 PST

Memoir:
Last Thanksgiving left us with a memory we'll be giggling about for years to come. My recently married sister was hosting her first large holiday meal. Needless to say, she was jittery over every detail of the beautifully set table, how the turkey would cook and wanted so much for everything to be perfect. It nearly was. As I was in the livingroom herding her guests to the diningroom table, we heard an explosion of sorts. It came from the kitchen. Stepping on each others heels and toes, we rushed to see what had happened. This may be hard to believe, but the bowl of mashed potatoes had blown up! Sis had purchased this beautiful serving bowl, and when she added the kettle full of hot potatoes to it, it simply exploded. Mashed potatoes and pieces of glass clung to the cupboards, splattered the countertop and radiated out across the kitchen floor. It was a virtual disaster, but thankfully this was a gathering of a family with a sense of humor. They cleaned up the mess while I made a dash to the convenience store. We had a wonderful meal in spite of the chaos and praised the good Lord for that large box of instant potatoes we tucked behind the toaster.

Name: Stephanie Kilian (skilian@mt.gov) Date: 11/16/98 18:34:53 PST

Memoir:
We were at my Grandmother's home for Thanksgiving, the entire family of 24 had gathered for the feast. The dining room table was set with the finest china, silver, and crystal. The wonderful array of food was placed on the table, along with the delectable turkey, to cool, while the gravy was being made and all last minute preparations were being done- the women were cooking in the kitchen, the men were watching t.v. (of course!), the children were playing, and the dog- a normally placid, well behaved Irish Setter, Betsy, was eyeing the turkey, she saw her opening- no one was looking, there was a turkey on the table, "what were these stupid people doing? Hmmm, well, if no one else wants that turkey, I think that I will jump up on the table and help my self." My Mother saw her grab the turkey by the wing, and drag it off the table, along with half of the china, and crystal, and prance around the room with the prize. Obvisouly this had to be salvaged immediately, and before my very proper grandmother knew . We retrived the turkey from the dog- not an easy task. and had an immediate family consiracy to explain the mess, without my grandmother having a fit, and declaring the entire holiday ruined. Well, my Male cousins, The College Football Princes, took the fall- by claiming to play football in the dining room. We all ate the turkey, and it continues to be a favorite holiday story. My Grandmother now knows the story, and laughs with the family. Betsy is gone now, we have a new dog- Prince, and he goes out side before we set the table.

Name: Kathy (Skb22@aol.com) Date: 11/10/98 15:03:41 PST

Memoir:
We had just moved into our new home in 1985. The home was new to us, but it was and is still an older home. Everything was going fine, I was really excited about serving Thanksgiving Dinner inmy "new home" and cooking in my newly remodeled kitchen. I cam home from work early the day before and started to prepare what I could prepare ahead of time. I was happily peeling and chopping and baking when the kitchen sinks backed up. I tried liquid plumber, I tried a plunger, I called Roto-Rooter, I tried everything I could try....but nothing worked. Soooo, Thanksgiving dinner was cooked, and served, and instead of using my beautiful new dishwasher, I had to handwash all the dishes, utensils, pots and pans, etc. in the bathtub. The BATHTUB!!! I was permanently bent over for days after. AT least it felt that way. By the way, I served 13 people that year!!! Believe it or not, it was one of the best Thanksgiving celebrations I ever had!

Name: Karen (itt@hotmail.com) Date: 11/10/98 08:14:45 PST

Memoir:
Thanksgiving Day Dinner was prepared beautifully
The guests were gathering at the bountiful table
but there was suddenly smoke in the house coming
from the kitchen. The smoke alarm was not going
off. A terrible smell issued from about the
refrigerator along with some powder on the floor near
by. Result - the fire exstinguisher had gone off
caused by a heavy package laid upon the top.

Thanksgiving Dinner now hot on the table has to
wait will sindows and doors were opened and
smell from fire extinguisher was eliminated -
Just thankful it was not a real fire !

Name: lisa bowley (lisann@mail.tss.net) Date: 11/08/98 15:43:54 PST

Memoir:
the one disaster my family will never let me forget-------four years ago, money was very tight,so i decided to make my own pie crusts and splurge on pumpkin pie filling. now i have never made a crust from scratch, so this was a major thing for me to do. any way, got the crust made and made the filling. i guess i put too much filling in because the next thing i knew, my pie was on fire in the oven!! as my children are yelling, my significant other throws baking soda in the oven and all over my pie. i'm devastated--
no pumpkin pie for thanksgiving. well, being the cheapskate that i can be; i made another crust and salvaged the filling from the first pie. yes, the second one turned out beautiful as it could be, but now i do not make pumpkin pies for thanksgiving---my significant other does.

Name: Ann Riley (ariley@vzinet.com) Date: 11/28/97 11:27:51 PST

Memoir:
In retrospect, this is humorous, but at the time, it was enbarrassing, especially for my Mom. She has almost exclusive rights to "entertaining anxiety" when it comes to food. She wasn't the world's greatest cook, but she did develop her own excellent recipe for sweet potato pie, a southern substitute for the more traditional pumpkin pie. One Thanksgiving, she made the pie a day ahead, covered it with aluminum foil, and placed it out on the screen porch where it would stay cool til THE DINNER. Somehow, her lovable but sneaky cat Jill got out there, unbeknownst to us, and proceeded to tear a sizable hole in the foil covering, and EAT a large but shallow crater in the pie filling! Of course, this was not discovered until it was time to serve dessert to our guests, and Mom had NO IDEA how to cope with this. We did have a tub of whipped topping in the fridge, though, and I quietly took it out to the porch, scraped away the top of the pie filling that had been nibbled, and covered the pie with a generous topping of Cool Whip. Nobody ever knew, but WE learned to keep Jill away from sweet potato pie at all costs!

Name: Carol Hord (chord@wyoming.com) Date: 11/26/97 12:34:27 PST

Memoir:
When I was very young. ..21...my step-mother was having Thanksgiving dinner for the family..4 girls home for holidays. We jumped in to help. We couldn't find neck and giblets to cook for the gravy...oh, well...make milk gravy...when the turkey was carved, there the giblets and neck were...in their usual nesting place from the packers...Mom had never cooked a turkey and didn't know they came packed that way. She has passed on now..so I can tell this tale on her. She was mortified and in tears...but good naturaturedly we just ate around the neck and giblets...I will never forget where those parts are!
So, if your giblets and turkey neck are missing...look in the cavity for the neck, and under the neck skin flap for the giblets.

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