Don't Let Holiday Cooking Get out of Hand, by Ryan Miller

In a holiday-infused rush, trying to balance early deadlines and time off for Thanksgiving and the fast-approaching Christmas, I came across an announcement that several local organizations are making pleas for donations of turkeys. While many people may be reading this column post-Thanksgiving, the tasty bird finds its way into plenty of other mid-winter holiday dinners, so I thought I'd offer a few turkey-selecting tips, whether you're buying for home use or donation purposes. By avoiding these common turkey mistakes, you'll have a greater chance of generation leftovers and sidestepping indigestion- or worse. I've ID each problem by both its technical and Common or "street" name.

PREMATURE PURCHASE (LIVE BUYING): Sometimes, in their eagerness to get the holiday cooking over and done with, harried shoppers will grab the first turkey they come across and toss it into their cart. Usually, this is not a problem. However, Consumer Reports notes that accidental purchases of live turkeys are on the rise ( up a startling 38 percent form last year in western and Midwestern U.S.), so one can never be too careful. The presence of a price tag or the fact that you found the bird in the freezer section of your local supermarket is not enough of a criterion. Before buying a turkey, be sure to check for the absence of the following, in this order: feathers, head, and pulse. Only if your turkey is missing all three features should you proceed with your purchase.

COUNTERFEIT TURKEY (COUNTERFURKEY): Some stores dress up inferior meats and label them turkeys. Under no circumstances should you eat a turkey made from any of the most common turkey imposters: swan, albatross, large gull, lesser tern, spitted flycatcher, cat or tofu. How can you tell? Real turkey flesh should be pink to the touch and carry the distinct odor of wattles. If you're not sure about the meat you're buying, take the carcass to a nearby police crime lab, preferably one with a CSI unit ( this may only apply to Las Vegas, Miami, and New York residents). For a small fee, forensic artists will examine the meat, extrapolate its features, sketch a rendering, and reconstruct what your dinner looked like before it was processed. If it's not a turkey, return it.

MSMATCHED GIBLETS (ROGUES): Each turkey comes with a bag of loose giblets. In the late "80s, Jennie-O fought rumors that it was transplanting tainted giblets from criminal or mutant turkeys into its holiday turkeys-a ridiculous bit of gossip that cost the company millions. Still, one can never be too sure or safe when it comes to holiday cooking. To eliminate giblet confusion, Hammacher Schlemmer offers a portable turkey-calibrated genetic matching device that can molecularly determine whether bagged giblets actually do belong to the parent turkey. The gadget features a thin pipette that easily slips through any packaging and onto the body cavity, where it sucks up a minute sample of giblets, light mead and dark meat, then displays the results on a small LCD display.

OVERSTUFFING (BALLONING): First-time turkey chefs are often unfamiliar with some of the finer details of cooking for large groups, and so tend to err on the side of excess. While massive amounts of mashed potatoes or candied yams create only a potential leftover problem, other recipes that are doubled-or sometimes even tripled- can be hazardous, or possibly fatal. Dressing, a.k.a. "stuffing," expands while it bakes inside a turkey. Experienced chefs typically leave room for this volume increase inside the cavity, and any unforeseen excess usually spills out into the baking pan. Unfortunately, neophytes tend to cram dressing into their turkeys, packing it tighter and tighter into a dense brick. This situation, coupled with tight lacing (another common problem). Forms a sort of balloon that swells and the temperature rises inside the oven. Thanks to its remarkably resilient skin, a turkey can puff out to almost double its original size. However, the contents will be under remarkable pressure. The first thing to puncture such a turkey ( whether thermometer or carving knife) will, in essence, pop the bird, sending scalding croutons, celery pieces- and sometimes oysters- to a distance of up to 300 yards at speed of nearly 230 mph.

AMINO INJECTION (BIRD DOPING OR "TRYPPING"): The sleep-inducing effects of the amino acid tryptophan in Thanksgiving turkeys has garnered much attention lately, leading to the inevitable "more is better" belief that prompts otherwise law-abiding people to pulse the envelope to unsafe levels. Street vendors, selling tryptophan-filled syringes, have seen an upswing in business in the last 3 years as more home chefs seek to prolong the happy post Thanksgiving dinner naptime buzz by upping their turkey's trypto-count in a single shot. While the uncertainty of buying such a powerful chemical from an unregulated source should be deterrent enough, I should point out the risks of miscalculated dosage or tained amino acids, which include sudden muscle fatigue, "night bladder," and solar sonority, a condition that causes the respiratory system to produce snoring, even while awake.

Now that you're armed with the latest information on safe turkey practices, there's no excuse of creating holiday culinary disaster-or worse, becoming the next holiday supper statistic.

Ryan Miller eats ham for Thanksgiving.