Phone courtesy of tj scenes on flickr.
I’m sure that some of you have started preparing the great Thanksgiving meal today – either that, or you’re en route home to help someone else prepare it. Wonktheplank and I are already back in Oregon to spend Thanksgiving with my parents, and today my mother and I are going to be making pies; she’ll be making the apple, and I’ll be tackling the pumpkin.
If you’re at all nervous about the task ahead of you, you’re in luck – corporate America has come to the rescue! Big companies have set up a series of Thanksgiving hotlines that offer advice to panicked cooks about everything from turkey to soggy pie crusts. Below is my compilation of hotlines that you can reach out to in the midst of a cooking crisis.
Thanksgiving Hotlines:
Butterball Turkey Talk-Line®
Tips on all things turkey.
Phone: 1-800-Butterball.
Email: talkline@butterball.com
The Martha Stewart Thanksgiving Hotline
Martha Stewart is here to answer all your Thanksgiving questions.
Phone: 866-675-6675 between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET.
Email: radio@marthastewart.com
King Arther Flour Baker’s Hotline
King Arther Flour produces excellent, high quality flour, and I expect that this hotline will offer similarly high-quality baking advice.
Phone: (802) 649-3717.
Crisco® Pie Hotline
This one is kind of cool, even though I would never make a pie crust with all Crisco (but a couple tablespoons mixed in with the butter are excellent for creating a crisp, flaky texture). Call the Crisco® Pie Hotline with all your pie questions.
Phone: (877) FOR-PIE-TIPS.
OceanSpray Consumer Hotline
Is making cranberry sauce all that hard? You just put your cranberries, sugar and other seasonings into a pot and let them all cook away. Still, if you encounter any cranberry conundrums, the OceanSpray Consumer Hotline is here to help.
Phone: (800) 662-3263 (toll free). Weekdays, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. EST.
ModernDomestic 
Rebecca said
Thanks! I am a first time turkey roaster and I may call Butterball. There is a plastic doo-hickey at the drumstick end of the turkey to hold the legs together. Can I roast with that in there or do I have to remove it? If I have to remove it, How the heck do I do it? I already pulled on it until I lifted the entire turkey by it, so that thing does not want to come out.
I hope you are having a great holiday!
moderndomestic said
So, according to my mother, that plastic thing is there there to help the Turkey keep its birdlike shape during roasting. There should be something written on the bag the turkey came in saying you can leave that thing in, just so long as the roasting temperature doesn’t get above 450 degrees. You can also remove it and truss the bird yourself with kitchen string. Here’s an epicurious video on turkey trussing: http://video.epicurious.com/?fr_story=4a3bd4522204383f0151f36cd102e853fca61b24.
Uncle Mike said
I called the King Arthur number to get equivalencies for cake and dry yeast. They were very helpful, if a bit clinical. I used to be able to look this up in Joy of Cooking, but I sent my copy off to Eugene, never to return.
moderndomestic said
Dude, Mike, that’s awesome! The Joy of Cooking is excellent for those kinds of things – I use Grandma’s version all the time to look stuff up.