Our practice is to jam as much stuffing as physically possible inside the bird, and then have a whole bunch of extra cooked alongside.

This would be us. I'm from the land of cornbread dressing.

My ex got cholera from an oyster shell. That was exciting.

I also brine the turkey, and cook it breast down for part of the time. I'm obsessive about moist turkey. This may be because I don't really like turkey.

Raq is me.

I am notoriously lax about food panics like stuffing salmonella. I think it's hooey.

And one more for the road.

I've been known to have the dog in one hand and the wooden spoon in the other. Which freaks out the guests, but no one's been sick yet, so I must be doing something right.

My ex got cholera from an oyster shell. That was exciting.

How do you know it was the shell and not the oyster?

ION, Happy Birthday brenda!

How do you know it was the shell and not the oyster?

We were all eating the oysters, but only he cut his hand opening an oyster.

The salmonella from stuffing thing only happens when the turkey hasn't been cooked enough and then is left at room temperature. That leaves salmonella alive to chow down on stuffing, which is a great growing medium.

Thanks, ya'll. Aside from the whole being at work thing, I'm having a pretty decent day. Just went and got my favourite salad for lunch - pears, gorgozola, dried cranberries, walnuts - and meeting the fam for drinks after work at our favourite swank hangout. And I just found out that one of my oldest friends is going to stop by. Then - fondue! I felt the need for something slightly oddball today.

Fondue is fun, it's been awhile since I've had that.

Happy Birthday Brenda!

Mmm, stuffing.

My mom used to cook it inside the bird (with another pan alongside, because otherwise there wouldn't be enough, and my brothers and I would leave off political arguments and duel to the death with electric carving knives over who got the last bit of apple-sausage stuffing) until a few years ago when the salmonella thing got really publicized. At the same time she got really paranoid about cooking the bird long enough. As a result, she serves sandpaper-dry turkey. Some year when she's not paying attention, Dylan and I are going to brine the bird and cook it ourselves.

I don't think I've ever had food poisoning. Even when Mom accidentally cooked the Easter ham with the plastic still on nothing bad happened. Somehow she forgot to take it off and we didn't realize until I went to cut the ham, we just peeled the plastic off and ate the ham, which was very good.

The salmonella from stuffing thing only happens when the turkey hasn't been cooked enough and then is left at room temperature. That leaves salmonella alive to chow down on stuffing, which is a great growing medium.

Yeah, the larger objection I've always heard was that in order to cook the turkey long enough to bring it and the stuffing up to temprature, you'd end up drying out the turkey. And according to Alton Brown, basting does nothing towards keeping the bird moist.

We've always basted, always used the stuffing we use, and only a few times has the turkey been dry. Gravy goes a long way towards alleviating turkey dryness, though.