Canadian Thanksgiving...aka: the holiday that utilizes every pot and pan in your kitchen

Since we are rapidly closing in on Thanksgiving, it's time to talk turkey. Why? Because if you're planning on serving turkey and it's currently frozen, you need to carefully consider when you are planning on roasting it. Thawing always takes about 3 days longer than you think it will take. I can’t tell you the number of times that it has been necessary to bring in heavy equipment to pry apart still-frozen turkey legs so that the giblets can be removed by numb hands and the cavity jammed full of stuffing. As a rule of thumb, it takes 24 hours in the refrigerator to thaw every 5 pounds of turkey. In other words, a 20 pound frozen turkey will take 4 days to defrost. There are other ways of thawing turkey but they're probably not as safe as having the thing take up most of the room in your fridge. You can, of course, avoid all of the headaches of defrosting by simply buying a fresh turkey.

Most families have developed their own unique techniques for stuffing and roasting turkey. For example, my grandmother (who liked large fowl) was known to once cook a turkey with the oven door half open. That’s what happens when you buy a 30 pound turkey….you roast one end of the turkey at a time. On the bright side, it's a good way to heat the house on a brisk fall day. Because of these family turkey traditions, I am going to avoid the topic of roasting the bird over the next week; instead, I’ll provide some recipes for side dishes to accompany the turkey.