Joe Kissell trades his trackpad for a whisk and brings his knack for breaking complex topics into simple steps to the task of preparing a full-bore Thanksgiving dinner. With Joe’s help and extensively tested recipes, cooking a complete Thanksgiving feast can be both delicious and stress-free!
If you’d like your Thanksgiving preparations to go smoothly (and who wouldn’t?), turn to experienced tech writer and foodie Joe Kissell for help. At least half the battle is a good plan, and Joe provides you with a customizable plan that gets you organized, helps you figure out what you need to buy, and prevents last-minute problems. Once the planning and shopping are done, follow Joe’s detailed, tested recipes for Thanksgiving dinner: roast turkey with gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry relish, candied sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie.
"Thanks for a great guide! I used it to successfully cook my first complete Thanksgiving, almost single-handed. While I can follow recipes, I am nowhere close to ‘a cook’—your guide gave me the confidence to take on this meal!" —Ed Ruder
Appendixes cover special cases from allergies to vegans, drawings guide you as you work with the turkey, and a special included "Print Me" file provides shopping lists and schedules, as well as versions of the recipes that you can tape up in the kitchen. Although these recipes scale easily for a few more people, they are meant for 8-12 people. The recipes use U.S. and metric units.
Read this ebook to learn the answers to questions such as:
- What type of turkey should I buy?
- Is there a fast way to make cranberry relish?
- What’s the secret to making perfect gravy?
- How do you deal with a raw turkey, and which end is the neck?
- See the FAQ tab above for more questions and some answers.
"I’ve been cooking Thanksgiving dinner for longer than I care to admit, and I never would have thought I’d pick up so many good tips! Great book!" —Trish Huffman
Joe Kissell is the author of more than 75 books about technology. In 2017, he also became the publisher of Take Control Books, when alt concepts—the company he runs with his wife, Morgen Jahnke—acquired the Take Control imprint from TidBITS Publishing Inc.’s owners, Adam and Tonya Engst. Before he began writing full-time in 2003, Joe managed software development, a totally normal profession for someone with degrees in philosophy and linguistics.
In his rare non-work hours, Joe likes to walk, cook, read, and teach tai chi. He lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, with Morgen and their sons. You can follow him on Mastodon (@joekissell) or Bluesky (@joekissell.com), or visit his personal website, JoeKissell.com.
What’s New in the Second Edition
As I write this in October 2023, it has been 11 years since this book was last updated, and 17 since it was originally published! During that time, nothing has changed about how you roast a turkey or mash potatoes, so even someone with an old version of this book would have no problem following its instructions. However, the book was showing its age in a number of ways, and a refresh was long overdue. Here’s what has changed in this edition:
- I updated the manuscript to use our current layout and follow the latest version of our style guide, which involved a lot of tweaky text changes and some judicious editing to make various elements fit in the available space.
- Many of the links to websites had changed or broken, so I updated or deleted them as needed.
- After taking notes last year when I cooked Thanksgiving dinner, I made some small adjustments (let’s call them “bug fixes”) to a few of the recipes. For example, I made some clarifications about how to dry bread for stuffing (see “Prepare Stuffing”), adjusted the temperature at which you cook the giblets for the gravy (see “Make Gravy”), and added a note about working with buttermilk for “upgraded” mashed potatoes (see “Make Mashed Potatoes”).
- I cleaned up the timetables (“Day Before Thanksgiving Schedule” and “Thanksgiving Day Schedule”), which mysteriously had some missing steps.
Q: What if I don't want to make everything by hand?
A: You don't have to! Although the book assumes you'll make most things by hand, it also has sidebars that suggest when cutting a corner may the better part of valor and an appendix helps if you have to make Thanksgiving dinner with little prep time.
Q: What about my aunt Martha's stuffing recipe?
A: The book provides recipes that work together in terms of time and temperature, but it also assumes that you may want to swap in a recipe or two of your own.
Q: How do you recommend preparing the turkey?
A: Joe explains a basic brining technique.
Q: Isn't brining too hard for less-experienced cooks?
A: Joe has a special talent for breaking down complex tasks into simple steps. We think a lot of cooks will be pleased when they see how easy Joe makes it.
Q: I noticed that you don't cover a green vegetable, homemade rolls, or pecan pie.
A: Yes. We limited the book's scope to something we felt could be achieved by normal humans. The book does welcome you to make more dishes, and it links to a few noteworthy recipes for green veggies.
Q: What about vegetarians?
A: The book has a lovely recipe for a polenta-and-cheese based main course for vegetarians, and it even has an appendix on how to accommodate vegans. However, if you plan to cook an all-vegan feast, this isn't the right book for you.
Q: What about the gravy?
A: The gravy recipe is superb. And, Joe splits it so people with less time or experience can go for great gravy, but readers with more time or experience can go for amazingly superb gravy.
Q: What's a computer geek doing writing a cookbook?
A: Joe writes about technology in order to support his habit of eating well, and he was playing with his food long before he started playing with computers. He wields a whisk or a mouse with equal proficiency. Joe realized that the same methods he uses to make seemingly complicated computer tasks seem easy could be applied to seemingly complicated cooking tasks, and this book is the result.
Posted by Tonya Engst on November 24, 2009
Get the scoop on Joe’s favorite ebook, Take Control of Thanksgiving Dinner. In the MacVoices #9120 podcast episode, Joe and host Chuck Joiner talk about choosing a turkey, baking a moist turkey, making various side dishes, handling logistics, and more. Also, if you know what a turkey “giblet” is, but have always wondered which “giblet” is which organ, check out the Turkey Giblets post from Joe’s The Geeky Gourmet blog.
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