Roast Turkey Recipe

On this most American feast of feasts, there are inevitably questions, concerns, if not downright panic over how to properly prepare a Thanksgiving Dinner.

As an aid to our readers, I will elicit the help of two well-known chefs, Barbara Stanwyck, and Alan Hale, who, from “Stella Dallas” (1937), demonstrate for us the proper way to cook a turkey.

Pay attention. Take notes.

First: choose one extremely large turkey that has been hanging in the window of the butcher shop by its feet. Always buy a bird with the feet still on it. That’s how you know you have a good one. Never buy a bird that has been sealed in plastic. They don’t cook as well as an unwrapped turkey that you carry in your arms. This way, bits of fiber from your woolen coat sleeves stick to the skin of the turkey, and they taste good roasted.

Second: Wrestle with the turkey (minimum of two people needed for this step) for a few minutes to loosen the giblets inside.

Third: Shove it into an oven. Never mind stuffing it. Never mind putting it in a roasting pan. Those tactics are for amateurs. Real professional chefs never use roasting pans.

Fourth: Wrestle with the bird some more, taking it in and out of the oven several times before you finally close the oven door. This does nothing to affect the taste of the turkey, but you work up an appetite.

Finally: Close the oven door, leaving the feet exposed. As Mr. Hale remarks, “Of course, the feet don’t get very well done, but then I never cared for feet anyway.”

Try it today, and let me know how your Thanksgiving Dinner turns out.

Now, I’m off to wrestle with my turkey. Must fetch sports bra from the roasting pan.

Happy Thanksgiving.