Making turkey 101

 It can be done, he said, but you have to work at it.

 "I've never had a bad turkey," said McKiver, who lives between Aberdeen and Groton and is generally charged with overseeing his family's Thanksgiving preparations.

 Now 60, he served more than 15 years in the U.S. Army Reserve's 452nd Ordnance Co., where he learned cooking tips and tricks from Isadore Sahli, a fellow cook in the Aberdeen-based unit.

 When it comes to turkey, the most important thing to remember is to fully thaw the bird before you start the cooking it, McKiver said. If you don't, the turkey will be tough when it's finished.

 He said he just sets the turkey out on the counter for a night or two to thaw it. Some folks, though, prefer the thawing be done in the refrigerator to cut down on the chances of problems like E. coli.

 As a rule of thumb, most cooking sites recommend allowing a frozen turkey to thaw 24 hours for every 5 pounds. That's in a refrigerator at a temperature below 40. That means starting the thawing process early is important.

 McKiver said even new chefs shouldn't be afraid to get creative. They should season the bird with salt and pepper and stuff it with whatever they like — onions, peppers, carrots, celery, etc. Even a little wine or beer in the pan will add flavor, he said.

 When it comes to picking a pan, McKiver's wife, Renee, has a suggestion: Get a disposable aluminum pan and toss it out when you're finished.

 Renee authored a cookbook filled with her favorite recipes last year. The introduction includes a story from her youth when she and her sister, Lynette, tried cooking their first big holiday meal when she was about 12 and Lynette about 14.

 It was for New Year's Day in the mid 1960s, several years after their mother had died.

 The dressing recipe said to boil the turkey's gizzard and neck and grind them. And that's what Renee and Lynette did — bones and all.

 "Uncle Martin and Dad ate our dressing and really bragged it up, stopping now and then to spit out the tiny little bones as they tried to choke it down," Renee wrote in her cookbook.

 There was one other mishap that day. To make the pumpkin pie, the girls simply emptied a can of pumpkin mix into the crust without adding the other necessary ingredients.

 Renee still recalls those stories of her days as a novice cook.

 Her husband has also made some mistakes through the years. Cooking in the reserves, he remembers using a very sharp knife to cut a cake. The knife cut right through the pan, lopping it into eight parts.

 "There are going to be mishaps," he said.

 Ultimately, though, the potential for mistakes shouldn't hinder new cooks from trying to prepare a holiday meal. The cooking process is fun, said Jack, who prefers a little trial and error instead of sticking to strict recipes.

 Some people cook turkeys in bags to keep them moist. Jack said he's never done that. He said the best thing to do to ensure moist meat is to cook the turkey breast down — the opposite of what most folks do. That keeps the breast meat in the juice at the bottom of the pan.

 Another tip he offers is to cook the bird at a low temperature, again to keep it moist. Most say to set the oven at 325 or 350. Jack, though, said 300 is better, even if it means cooking the turkey an hour or 90 minutes longer.