I haven’t been able to cook a turkey for years, since my oven went weird on me. I can still cook a casserole or a pie (with odd burned patches), and cookies work out, even roasts in covered pans, but my turkeys stopped cooking through, and even though they looked good on the outside and should have been done, they remained bloody on the inside, even if I didn’t stuff them. So, I gave up, and that was disappointing, because it was the easiest big dinner of the year, IMHO. I’m thinking, now, that I will try a turkey again, but this time make it the hardest, most complicated dinner of the year. 🙄

Thanksgiving in the USA is about two weeks away, so I’m gathering up information on how to debone a whole turkey. There seem to be two schools of thought on where to put that first knife cut, on the bottom next to the backbone or on the breast next to the sternum. I like them both and am not committing myself until I view these videos several more times each. Either way, there is the danger of cutting the thing in half when you get to the middle, whether it’s the sternum in the middle or the backbone. Which one looks best to you?

Here’s the best video for starting at the backbone:

Here’s the best video for starting at the breast:

I have a lot to think about, like do I have to do all this work on Thanksgiving morning or can I debone it on Wednesday and stuff it on Thanksgiving? Should I try to get a fresh turkey or thaw one a few days before? The other thing I might think about is whether I’m crazy, but I’m going to ignore that question until after the holiday evaluations. We’re not having company for the day, so I really have all the time in the world to do this thing.