Thanksgiving Crises Averted

November 25, 2009 at 7:03 am · Filed under baking, cooking, food media ·Tagged crisis averted, thanksgiving hotlines, the splendid table

I'm really only good for pie questions. Although those of you with my cell phone number are welcome to call.

Good luck to all the cooks out there embarking on their Thanksgiving meal for the first time tomorrow. I have to say – I envy you a little. I’ve only cooked the meal once, and it took me about ten hours. But man, they were a great ten hours. Even though the timing is hard, nothing about the meal is technically difficult – besides having the turkey, a naturally dry meat, turn out juicy and flavorful (my bird was neither, by the way). And doing that much cooking, coordinating all the little elements – it was tremendous fun.

If you’re looking for a good dessert recipe from the ModernDomestic archives, here are my best bets:

• Caramel pumpkin pie
• Classic pumpkin pie
• Apple, ginger and cranberry turnovers
• Caramel walnut apple pie
• Vanilla ice cream (for serving your pie a la mode)
• Pumpkin cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting
• Pumpkin beer ice cream

If you’re looking for more hands-on help before and during the big day, then never fear- there’s help out there. Professional help. As I did last year, I’ve compiled a list of Thanksgiving hotlines to answer all your questions. For those of you who don’t have my direct line, that is (not that I’m much help in anything but the pie department. But I can try).

For all your general cooking questions:

• The Splendid Table, Lynne Rossetto Kasper’s  wonderful NPR cooking show, will be having a two hour live call-in show starting at 11:00 am (eastern) on Thanksgiving day. Give Lynne a call at (800) 537-5252. You can also submit questions online at the show’s web site.

For turkey troubles

• The Butterball Turkey Talk-Line is all turkey, all the time. Call 1-800-BUTTERBALL or email them at talkline@butterball.com. You can also ask them a question via Twitter.

• If you’re anti-Butterball, Reynolds has a Turkey Tips Hotline at 1-800-745-4000.

• You can also call Purdue’s hotline with your turkey questions at 1-800-4PERDUE® (1-800-473-7383).

• If your Turkey question is specific to brining, call the Spice Hunter hotline at 888-334-8977.

For a pie crisis

• The Crisco Pie Hotline will answer your basic and advanced pie baking questions. Call them at -877-FOR PIE TIPS (1-877-367-7438). Granted, I hope they can answer questions about more than just shorting, since I dearly hope you’re using some butter in your pie crust (actually, I hope you’re using a ratio of six tbs butter and 2 tbs shortening to 1 cup of flour).

For general baking questions:

• Call the King Arther Flour’s Baker’s Hotline at 802-649-3717 (M-F, 8am-9pm EST, Sat-Sun, 9am-5pm, EST). If their hotline is as good as their flour, then you’ll be set.

• The Fleischmann’s Yeast Baker’s Help Line can talk you through yeast-baking questions and issues; call them at 1-800-777-4959.

Cranberry queries:

• Problems with the cranberry sauce? Ocean Spray can answer cranberry questions at 1-800-662-3263.

Good luck!

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