OMG, Bizzo, I just wing it! First, when I'm at the meat counter this year, I want the turkey butterflied but with the skin and bones left in it. From the same shop, last year the butcher asked me one time if I wanted it deboned. Hemming and hawing, I said yes. What I got was a 1/2 turkey breast that was 3-4" thick, skin left on. I grilled it and it made wonderful sandwiches. No problem trying to carve it and get all the meat off the bones. Here's what I intend to do this Thanksgiving-- Wash the turkey breast and dry it. Then stuff sage leaves under the skin along with some small pieces of butter. The skin be covered with a rub of Penzeys Southwest Seasoning. I use a small gas grill so it isn't set up for indirect heat. Usually, I keep the heat in the 325-350 degree range The turkey breast will be placed on the grill, skin down for the time it takes to make the skin a light golden brown. Then flip the turkey so that it rests on it's bones and cooks for the rest of the time that way. Total cooking time should be 60-75 min. I use an instant read thermometer (I target about 170 degrees), but cut into the thickest part of the breast--meat near the bone should no longer be pink. Using these instructions, your turkey breast should look dark golden brown and very moist. This is our favorite way to cook turkey. Since we have a couple of months before Thanksgiving, please cook a 1/2 turkey breast yourself. Cooking times will be similar and you will get a feel for how it's done and whether or not you like it. It's easy and delicious!

Just as an aside - the man who had a heart attack would have applied for disability, which is NOT welfare. And which he had undoubtedly paid into in the form of Social Security taxes all the years that he did work. The amount he would have collected would have been a fraction of what he made during his working years. I am on disability myself - and I'm sure there are many others on this list who are as well. We are not deadbeats or layabouts, and we are not raking in undeserved huge piles of cash. We are getting by, by and large, and some people don't even manage that on disability. The man could not have received "welfare" as even when it existed it was not paid out to men. But aside from that - back to the original subject. Frankly I would have been quite up-front about telling someone who offered to bring a frozen turkey that they should either bring a COOKED turkey, or bring something else - also already fully prepared. Seriously, any adult should know better. "It's too much trouble for ME to make a turkey, but I'll dump this onerous task that I can't do on someone else" - that's just not acceptable. You know that nearly every grocery store in the country offers fully cooked and hot turkeys through their deli departments, if nothing else. So they could still buy a fully cooked turkey if they didn't know how to cook one themselves. I would have had no qualms whatsoever about telling someone, politely, with a big smile even, that only a COOKED bird was acceptable, and then offer alternatives for things they could bring instead. On the other side of the equation - the host doing something obnoxious instead of one of the guests - one year a fellow grad student offered to make Thanksgiving dinner - and then charged every one a fee PLUS required us to bring something. Needless to say I never attended a dinner at that person's house again! I figure she cleared at least $50 on that deal, plus kept all the leftovers. I found out about this in the car on the way over there. Too late by far to back out, and we had to stop at a grocery on the way so we could all buy something "to bring" - selected from a very specific list which she had provided (at the last minute) to one of the other students. Had I known in advance about the "to bring", I'd have made something. Had I known in advance about the fee, I'd have bowed out entirely. That's the other side of rude dinner party behaviour, LOL! Thanksgiving is no longer stressful for me as I stopped doing it the year my son (now 29) was born. I was one day out of the hospital, he was 3 days old, and the entire family (and all their kids and various and sundry significant others) descended on me with their usual ridiculously high expectations. Nobody brought anything, they all knew I was less than 24 hours out of the hospital after childbirth, nobody even OFFERED to bring anything. They all sat down and proceeded to gripe about every. single. thing. They were particularly incensed that there were no home-made rolls (I had bought good-quality dinner rolls) and no pumpkin pie (which I have never made in my life anyway, including for all the 20 preceding family Thanksgiving dinners). They complained about the lack of cranberry relish, another item which I have never willingly made and certainly hadn't made in the 8 years since leaving home as an adult. I spent 2 days preparing a huge feast, and then I spent the entire Thanksgiving "celebration" inundated with nitpicking and whining. In 20 years, I had done every Thanksgiving dinner - since I was 6 years old - by myself except for 2. And they KNEW I was pregnant and due to deliver sometime in late November/early December. The fact that I was 10 days early had things gone according to "plan" doesn't help, as if I HADN'T been early, I'd have been hugely pregnant and about to pop while still having to make dinner for 12 ingrates. So, that was the last bird day for me, and no one else ever bothered to do a family holiday meal ever again (keeping in mind I nearly always did Xmas meals as well for the family). Sometimes one sister would do a mini-family meal, where she would pointedly NOT invite certain of the rest of the siblings - and she always wondered why my dad boycotted those meals. He didn't want to go unless the WHOLE family was there. Otherwise he knew he would have to listen to hours of sniping by those present against the unfavored remainder of his offspring, LOL! I take that back, I did do bird day one more time - when my dad was in his late 80's. Nobody but the sister who was living with him and mooching off him bothered to show up - until the next day, when some of them swung by just long enough to grab leftovers and complain about there not being any turkey (my dad hates turkey and had asked for a ham) or any pumpkin pie. Talk about gall, LOL!

" Posted by lindac --I big cold turkey in a pot of hot water is a good way to keep the meat at just the proper temperature for bacteria growth. Much better to put it directly into the oven. " This topic of cause can lead to an endless heated discussion. Still, let me give it a try. What first gave me the reasons to try to find a way that led me to use my method: 1. A frozen 20-lb turkey will take five to six days to thaw in the frig, and there is never room in a freezer to keep a turkey. We all know how much other stuff you have to get for the Thanksgiving dinner in the refrigerator. 2. A turkey from the frig directly to oven, takes too long to cook to reach safe temperature all the way deep inside, and by that time, the meat outside, thatÂs more than half of the turkey, is very overdone, tough and dry. Or worst, the inside meat is still bloody when you are serving to your friends and family. Please understand that I am not recommending to anyone to be unsafe. The many cities I have traveled to outside of this country, including Argentina (meat capital of the world) and recently to Paris, it is not unusual for meats to be sold without refrigeration for the whole day. Pathogens can grow in the refrigerator temperature as well. Generally, it is considered unsafe for temperature to be from 41 to 140 degrees (I think, please check for accuracy). The other important factor is time. Given it enough time, anything can go bad. That why it doesnÂt take long for meats to go bad in a frig. I hate to think what is going on in an uncooked turkey for more than six days in a frig. Here is what I have been doing for more than ten years. Reserve in advance a turkey from the supermarket. Pickup the frozen turkey on Thanksgiving day. Prepare hot water to about 120 degrees. Dump frozen turkey with its plastic bag in hot water, and keep water temperature at about 120 to 130 degrees. I donÂt know if this is absolute correct, I never timed it. Depending on how big and how frozen the turkey is, about an hour later, the whole turkey is completely warmed up ready for seasoning and stuffing. Because the turkey is hot (but not cooked) at this time, it does not take long in the oven for the temperature to reach 165 deep inside without overcooking the outside. Just simple law of thermal dynamics. The entire process gives very little time and opportunity for harmful pathogens to multiply. I advice you not to use my method. It is unorthodox. Go cold turkey. :-) dcarch

Thanks everyone! I have three daughters who all appreciate quilts so it will be in good hands. Teresa, I'm in Kansas so I won't be able to get to NC for an appraiser. I have contacted a local appraiser though thanks to msmeow's links. I just have to wonder, when did Great, Great Grandmother Ann have time to do this needlework?! Farm wife in the 1850's. incredible!