5 Thanksgiving dinner disasters and how to avoid them

1. Varnished memories

Jessica Sims, a poison information provider at the Illinois Poison Center, once received a call from a woman who had accidentally varnished a turkey. The caller's husband had put varnish in a Tupperware and stored it in the fridge; she had assumed the varnish was a condiment, and used it to baste the turkey. "All of the guests remarked how perfect the turkey looked, a beautiful deep golden brown," Sims writes. "The left over varnish was made into gravy, which stuck to everything. Unfortunately the mistake was realized AFTER everyone ate this varnish." The lesson here? "We should never store household products or chemicals near food."

Jessica Metz, a certified specialist in poison information at the Illinois Poison Center, has another tip: Don't use an oral thermometer to check your turkey's temperature. "A fever thermometer only goes up to about 110ºF, and a turkey needs to be cooked until at least >170ºF, so the glass can shatter and leak mercury," she writes. "Glass and mercury is not the kind of dressing your dinner guests are expecting."

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2. Fit to be fried

The Westcliffe, Colorado, Wet Mountain Tribune assembled a slew of disaster stories, but one tale in particular stood out: the Fisher family's. Husband Greg had decided to deep fry a turkey, so he set up the fryer in the yard and got to work. According to his wife, Deborah, when dinnertime arrived, one part of the turkey was not well cooked enough, so they cut it off and put it back in the fryer. "We were all around the table enjoying our lovely meal," Deborah told the Tribune, "when grandma exclaimed there was a pretty orange color outside." The cooker had caught on fire, and the whole backyard was lit up. By the time the fire was put out, dinner was cold.

The Fishers were fortunate — fryer fires can often be disastrous. But there are a few guidelines you can follow that will make frying a bird safer. First, don't set up indoors! Make sure the fryer is on stable ground, so it can't tip and splash anyone with 350-degree oil. And defrost the turkey completely before putting it in the fryer — combining oil and water (caused by defrosting ice crystals) will often cause an explosive blaze. The National Fire Protection Association has more advice on what to do and what not to do here. The NFPA actually discourages "the use of outdoor gas-fueled turkey fryers that immerse the turkey in hot oil" and instead recommends seeking out "professional establishments, such as grocery stores, specialty food retailers, and restaurants for the preparation of the dish, or consider a new type of 'oil-less' turkey fryer."

3. Extra baggage

Based on his column for The Somerville News, Jimmy DelPonte's Thanksgivings are nearly always an event to remember. Once, the bird was too big to fit in the oven. Another time, the heating element in his oven blew up, causing a fire and embedding metal shrapnel in the turkey. And twice, DelPonte has cooked the bird with a few extra accessories. "When I was very young and newly married, I had the whole family over to my house to cook my first Thanksgiving Day dinner," he writes. "My mother, who was so sweet, tried not to look too disappointed when she opened the oven to check it out. It was breast side down with a little smoke coming out from where I didn't even remove the inners bag!" And again: "The first time I had Thanksgiving Day at my house, I cooked the bird leaving a spoon and the bag of giblets in it. Then when we were cleaning up, I cut my finger and ended up in emergency room for stitches." So learn from DelPonte's example: Check inside the bird before you put it in the oven, and be careful with sharp objects.

4. Who let the dogs out?

It might seem like common sense to lock up your pets when cooking a Thanksgiving dinner, but in the chaos of arriving family members and other distractions, it's easy to forget. Take Frank Gunsberg of Ramsey, New Jersey, who was hosting a dinner for 20 guests when he realized both his golden retriever and the turkey were missing. He found them in a cabinet — the bird on the floor, unmarred but for a few puncture wounds. Though his wife protested, Gunsberg wiped down the bird and served it anyway. "Those guests are hearing this story for the first time," he told NorthJersey.com.

Then there was the case of a Chihuahua who climbed inside a bird. "A frantic new mom hosting her first Thanksgiving feast had a Chihuahua that climbed up onto the kitchen table and into the turkey, and she couldn't get the dog out," writes Todd Sigg on the Illinois Poison Control Center blog. "I told her to pull really hard and yank the little guy out. I could understand the awesomeness of it from the dog's point of view — a meat room."

It's not just dogs you have to worry about. In this call for Turkey Day disasters, one commenter told a story about walking away from the sink and coming back "to find out that the cat had pulled the thawed turkey out of the sink and onto the floor and had chewed off a large portion of the breast!" And when Tina Pyne's then 9-year-old nephew decided to play a prank on her at their family's Thanksgiving dinner by putting his pet iguana on her head, the iguana took off, through all the food. "Every person there was covered in flying food," Tina told West University Buzz. "We went out for Chinese."

The takeaway is obvious: Keeping your pets away from your meal not only ensures you have a meal to eat, but also protects your pets from eating foods that might be poisonous to them. (This is also a good reason to avoid feeding your animals at the table, which encourages bad habits.)

5. Recipe for disaster

In the insanity of Thanksgiving meal prep, it's easy to forget an ingredient or miss a key step, whether it's neglecting to put sugar in your pumpkin pie, cooking stuff (like stuffing and turkey) together that should be cooked separately, using white vinegar instead of white wine on the turkey, or skipping slurry and creating really lumpy gravy. So don't get fancy. Keep your recipe nearby, and follow it closely.

And while you're at it, make sure you have the right equipment: a good meat thermometer will help you avoid trying to plate an undercooked or frozen bird, and big, deep pans will keep fat and other turkey fluids from dripping all over your oven (which might smoke out your guests). Last thing: Check for expiration dates and keep your bird within the proper temperature range so you don't accidentally make people sick.

— Erin McCarthy

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