Talking turkey and cooking tips

AccuWeather

The turkey is the star of most Thanksgiving tables, but making sure it comes out just right can be stressful. Bill Nolan, supervisor of Butterball's free Turkey Talkline, joins AccuWeather Early to share his hot tips.

Transcript

00:00the turkey is the star of most thanksgiving tables but making sure it comes out just right

00:10can be stressful for more than 40 years butterballs free turkey talk line has helped home cooks

00:16through the day joining us is bill nolan culinary educator retired chef and supervisor for the

00:22butterball talk line thanks so much for being with us thanks for having me it's a pleasure

00:27all right bill what are some of the most common questions you get each thanksgiving

00:33well the most common question we've had historically since 1981 when we opened 44 years ago

00:40is how do i thaw my turkey you know a turkey isn't something that people make often you know they

00:45make it around the holidays uh it's a large piece of meat and so there's a couple different ways you

00:50can do it you can do it in the refrigerator over several days or you can do it in cold water to

00:55expedite that process if it's closer in that's why we always encourage people to make sure they

01:00know what they're doing 1-800 butterball call us we're here all week long they can also go to our

01:04website at butterball.com for a lot of different information including how-to videos and i'm sure

01:09over your many years you've had a lot of memorable calls any ones that stick out in particular

01:14yeah a couple come to mind you know nine years ago i was brand new on the talk line you know nervous

01:20talking to consumers and and i found it was really an empowering thing to do because we're helping

01:25people and i had a gentleman that called up and lost his had lost his wife in the last year and he

01:31really wanted to make a thanksgiving dinner for his children so i walked him through the process gave

01:35him the resources told him to call us the next day because we're here on thanksgiving as well and uh it

01:41was really a kind of a neat call to me because uh you feel like you're really making a difference with

01:45people what are your top tips to make sure the turkey comes out just right you know the the and

01:52this is when i talk to customers or when i talk to students when i'm teaching or when i'm talking to

01:57friends and family the best thing you can do is to be prepared number one and that is making a plan

02:04knowing exactly what you're going to do to make that turkey have the turkey make sure that it's going

02:10to be thawed in time know your cooking process what your oven temperature is going to be butterball

02:15recommends 325 in a pan have a pan that's going to hold the turkey make sure that your ovens are

02:23shelves are in the right place so that it's going to fit when you put it in that's all the homework

02:28you do ahead of time so when it comes down to the actual day of cooking it you're reducing that stress

02:33level because you have fewer unknowns okay the most important thing aside from being prepared on that

02:40is to have a reliable meat thermometer you know the way we talk to people has changed so much over the

02:44years how has that impacted the talk line are more people reaching out by text chat social media

02:49yeah all of the above really we introduced texting uh several years ago and we get several texts i mean

02:57it's great because people can be at the grocery store they have a question about the turkey and they can

03:02just send us a text and we'll help them uh we've introduced um social media we're on all the platforms

03:08and so we have experts here that monitor those platforms as well as experts here that answer the

03:15phone calls that come in because the phone calls are still the backbone of the talk line now what new

03:20trends or questions are you hearing from home cooks this year what we're finding out first of all is that

03:27more people are celebrating thanksgiving coming back up from the pandemic years you know in the pandemic

03:33years people weren't getting together so more people are hosting you know 89 percent of people responding

03:37say they're going to celebrate thanksgiving and about 86 percent say they're going to have turkey at

03:42thanksgiving so that's a trend that's going up because we want to see people coming together and

03:46enjoying the holidays bill nolan culinary educator retired chef and supervisor for the butterball

03:52talk line thanks for joining us here today and happy thanksgiving

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