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cooking, remove the little plastic bag with the giblets." It is, of course, not a major disaster if you forget this. It just makes the inside of the bird a little messy when the plastic bag starts to melt in the 325-degree oven...

"Actually," Trites notes, "the first thing you have to do depends on whether it's fresh or frozen. If it's frozen, you've gotta defrost it. The best way to do that is to leave it in the fridge, because turkeys are apt to spoil - as with all fowl. They have been known to have salmonella, which is not fun. Spending Thanksgiving day on the john is not a good time."

For the same reason, he says to bag the stuffing. "I would not cook a bird with a stuffing in it. The stuffing's going to sit inside and breed bacteria. And then, in order to get your internal temperature up to 185, 190 degrees, where you can kill the bacteria, the turkey is going to be cooked to death by the time you're done. So cook the turkey, and cook the stuffing separately."

Preparation is pretty basic. Trites recommends rubbing the bird down with some seasoning - pepper, thyme, and toss a couple of bay leaves into the cavity. You can also toss an onion, and maybe a stick of celery, in there to add to the flavor. You can also rub it down with a little oil or butter

Just like the Pilgrims, you probably won't have the right tools for this job. You want to cook your bird covered, so it doesn't dry out; your best bet for that is a full-size, covered, metal roasting pan. But if you don't have one, you can make do start with a large aluminum-foil roasting pan from the supermarket. Then, either cover the bird with an aluminum foil tent, or place the bird in a standard brown-paper grocery bag right in the pan (the moisture from the turkey keeps the bag from burning, while the bag hold the moisture in).

There are two schools of thought about placement of the bird, too. One school insists on starting with the breast down, so that as it cooks the juices pool in the breast meat and keep it tender; then, about 3/4 of the way through the cooking, you flip it over. Trites follows the other school, of "pop it in the oven and leave it alone." It's up to you which way to go - the advantages of maybe getting a moister meal may be outweighed by the problem of flipping over a heavy hunk of scalding hot meat.

Next step: Pop it in the oven. You want to cook it twenty minutes for every pound of turkey (so a twenty-pounder goes for more than six and a half hours!). This should give you plenty of

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