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.

I have no grand thanksgiving turkey traditions, so I'm not parital to much of anything. Bringing the turkey last year was good, though, and I'd love to try butterflying the turkey and seasoning the stuffing/dressing in the manner that Jessica described.

But I'm not particularly attached to any one method.

I also, even though I mentioned it in jest upthread, do not fear the Grim Salmonella Reaper WRT turkey either.

Mat tbelieves in over stuffing the Turkey. I don't eat the white meat - just the dark , so it is always moist enough. Oddly, right now I would like a thanksgiving feast. Somehow, I feel that it isn't going to happen

I'm totally going to Marie Callendar's for their turkey lunch today.

actually, my favorite turkey dinner as at Redbones, the Somerville BBQ place, on Tuesday nights. for $8.99, you get a heaping plate of smoked turkey, sausage & cornbread stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn with jalepeno, cornbread, cranberry sauce, and gravy.

If I could eat that on Thanksgiving along with several delicious beers, I certainly would. Otherwise, I'm a bit on the underwhelmed side about the whole endeavor. No one in my family enjoys cooking Thanksgiving dinner, and whenever Tom and I do it, it's freaking exhausting. (Same for Xmas)

t books tix for Tom and Nora to come to our house for Thanksgiving, thus alleviating the family BS and being with someone who enjoys it

Since this year we're doing both families at Christmas instead of one at Thanksgiving, it'll probably be just us for Thanksgiving. We'll have to figure out how to do Thanksgiving dinner for two plus one finicky nibbler.

Marie Callendar makes a really good turkey frozen dinner. Actually all of their frozen dinners are really good, but the turkey and the meatloaf are my favorites.