Roasting turkey may seem an odd topic for February if you’re someone like me who normally limits that activity to November. But a lot of things in life aren’t normal these days, and my adventure with turkey is one of them.

Thanksgiving, Turkey, Tradition. Every November I’ve crossed these Ts conscientiously with few exceptions. For decades I’ve prepared turkey the way my mother did: stuffed with homemade dressing, roasted at 325° and basted hourly, then covered with foil to prevent overbrowning. Finished when the leg gave a friendly shake.

Out of 50 Thanksgivings I’ve celebrated since I married, I’ve cooked about 45 of the dinners. The menu and my dressing recipe have changed somewhat during that time, but not how I roast turkey. Ah, tradition. Until 2020, that is.

There were a lot of things about the first year of the pandemic that weren’t traditional, and how I roasted turkey was one of them, though I can’t explain why. The grocer had given me a lovely 18-pound bird at no cost because of confusion in filling my order for pick-up. (I added that to a long list of lifetime firsts since the pandemic began.)

I opened my 1975 Betty Crocker cookbook as usual to jog my memory of dressing proportions and roasting times, but my attention went to directions for foil-wrapped turkey on the adjacent page. There I read “… produces a juicy, very well-cooked bird …”  The traditional roasting directions made no such claim. Reading further, I came to the required temperature: 450°. Four hundred fifty degrees? For an 18-pound turkey? No way. I would set it at … well … let’s say 390°. As for cooking time for a stuffed bird, no suggestions were given, so I shrugged and adjusted the time myself.

On Thanksgiving Day I carefully wrapped the stuffed turkey in heavy foil as directed: sealed well at the ends but lying open at the top with a 3-inch overlap. I don’t recall how far ahead of dinner I put the bird in the oven. But I do remember that the appetizers were gone and my family seemed restless (or maybe I imagined it) when the turkey still refused to give me a friendly shake of its leg. Nonetheless, I pulled it from the oven and proceeded with final dinner preparations.

Fortunately, our tradition is to pass a platter of turkey which I’ve sliced at the kitchen counter. 2020 was the first year ever that I didn’t include dark meat – it wasn’t fully cooked. No one seemed to care. We all agreed the turkey breast was the juiciest, most tender white meat we had ever eaten. The dressing inside the turkey was plenty hot for those not concerned about USDA recommended temperatures. Only the gravy, anemic and in short supply for a bird providing that much meat, was found wanting.

I vowed to try the foil-wrapped method again in 2021 but to allow extra oven time.

My list of lifetime firsts grew the next Thanksgiving. Because of various family needs, we planned to eat Thanksgiving dinner in the afternoon for the first time. The setting would be the home of my older daughter two or three hours away – another first. After much anticipation and negotiation, I agreed to bring the turkey, dressing, and gravy, which would all require cooking the day before. It sounded like leftovers for Thanksgiving, I thought, but if everyone was fine with the plan, it was fine with me.

When I opened my package of fresh turkey (no special deal on this one), I thought, “Was this bird well?” The skin lay unusually loose across the top of the breastbone. Nonetheless, I was pleased to have received the size I wanted. While the oven heated to 400°, I proceeded to stuff and wrap the turkey. The foil I had torn from the roll wasn’t quite long enough. No matter. Two smaller pieces filled in the openings. Good enough, I decided, though the foil wasn’t as well sealed as it was last year.

As usual, I tested the leg for doneness after what seemed a reasonable length of roasting time. Tested again. And again. Done at last. Really done. My best carving knife could barely make it through the breast meat. The legs weren’t much better. Our turkey, as tough as jerky, was cooked beyond edibility.

Never was I happier to live 10 minutes from a Honey-Baked Ham Company store. They had plenty of sliced turkey, the person taking my call said, but they couldn’t set any aside for me. Twelve minutes later I joined the line that curved through the store, out the door, and down two more storefronts.

Surely the evening news team would be attracted by the long line. A reporter would walk up to me, I imagined, and ask, “What brings you to Honey Baked Ham today?” She would thrust her mic in front of me to catch my answer. “I destroyed my turkey and threw the whole thing in the garbage,” I would reply. “Was this your first time to cook turkey for Thanksgiving?” she would query. “Oh no,” I would confess, “this was my 45^th.” I would not tell her how relieved I was to have agreed to do the unthinkable: to roast the turkey the day before Thanksgiving.

What I didn’t know yet was that on the bottom of the roasting pan was a reddish-brown gelatin unlike anything I had seen before. It had formed below a tiny hole where a skewer had pricked through the foil. From this strange gelatin I would make the best turkey gravy my family had ever tasted. There was plenty of it, too, so we could completely smother any sign that the turkey hadn’t come from my oven.

Our enthusiasm was so great, I swore to buy another turkey within the next two months to continue testing the foil-wrapped method. It was the 28^th of January, however, before the grocer’s bin of turkeys caught my attention. Thirty-nine cents a pound for Butterball brand, the sign read. I came home with the smallest (16.5 lbs.) for $6.44.

This time I decided to use a combination of logic and hard-learned lessons:

1. Large, solid objects that shouldn’t be served rare need more time at a lower temperature. I set the oven for 375° and stuffed the turkey as usual.
2. The purpose of the foil is to keep moisture in. I thoroughly sealed two large pieces of foil all around the bird except for a 3-inch overlap on top to prevent an explosion of steam.
3. Test for doneness with a thermometer, not a shake of the leg.

Five hours after putting the turkey in the oven, I removed it to open the foil on top. Threads of steam shot up several inches into the air. Back into the oven it went to brown.

The dressing, still below the recommended temperature, continued to heat in the oven while the turkey rested on the counter. As for the gravy, it was spectacular. I don’t know how juice escaped from the foil, but there was even more gelatin in the roasting pan than there had been two months ago. Was the white meat as tender as in 2020? Tender enough.

After four dinners of turkey and dressing and two lunches of hot turkey sandwiches, my husband and I still hadn’t tired of turkey and gravy. Not since the early 1970s has $6.44 bought us so much pleasure. Thanksgiving happened early this year.

As for November 2022, I have no idea what lifetime firsts may occur; but I do predict that my turkey adventure will continue.