Arthur Schwartz ,
Host of WOR Radio's "Arthur Schwartz with Food Talk"
and Author of Cooking in a Small Kitchen(Little, Brown, 1978);
What To Cook WhenYou Think There's Nothing In The House To Eat (HarperCollins, 1992); Soup Suppers (HarperCollins, 1994)
and Naples at Table: Cooking in Campania (HarperCollins, 1998).

  1. Roast your bird breast side down on a v-shaped rack until the last hour or so in the oven, then turn it to brown the breast. The result is moister white meat.

2. If you need your oven to reheat or cook side dishes, it's better to serve the turkey at room temperature with hot gravy than to reheat the bird. Reheating dries out the meat. In any case, the interior of a large turkey will stay quite hot for at least an hour.

3. Remember that it takes a full 24 hours to defrost every five pounds of frozen turkey in the refrigerator the only fully safe method. Therefore, a 20 pound turkey needs to defrost for a full four days. Remove the giblets and neck from the cavity as soon as they can be removed, which will be before the bird fully defrosts. ("What do I do, my turkey is still frozen?" is the most common question on my Thanksgiving Day last minute emergency radio program on WOR.)

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