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I Was living in Croatia and wanted to put on Thanksgiving dinner for my friends. It was to be my first Turkey. A friend hooked me up with a Granny who sold me a turkey and All I had to do was pick it up. Back home, I opened up the black garbage bag and discovered it was a WHOLE turkey - sans feathers. Figuring out how to get the neck, feet etc off and what to do with all the organs took many phone calls across 8 time zones. I finally finished prepping it in the wee hours of the morning. The next year, back in the States, I bought a Turkey from the supermarket and was amazed at how easy it was - just pop it in the oven. I couldn't figure out why such a fuss is made about cooking the turkey after the experience of the year before.

I was just learning how to cook, and decided to put on an American Thanksgiving spread for some musician friends who'd come up to Canada for a gig. I wasn't ready for homemade pie crust, but made the pumpkin pie filling from scratch, scooping it into a frozen pre-made crust in its tin-foil plate. Unfortunately, I picked up the flimsy pie plate by its sides. It crumpled in half from the weight of the filling, pouring the unbaked pumpkin sludge directly into the heat vent. The house smelled of slightly burned pumpkin for rest of the winter. Then, as a crowning touch, once everything was set up and my guests were lining up at the buffet, one of my cats jumped onto the table and swooped away with one of the drumsticks. We had a good time, though.

A few years ago, we were celebrating Thanksgiving at my in-laws house. It was a really big gathering with lots of family going in and out of the kitchen preparing side dishes, plating appetizers, setting the table, pouring wine, etc. My brother-in-law pulled the turkey out of the oven to baste it and then put it back in to finish cooking. About twenty minutes later, he lifted it out to test it for doneness. The bird still needed more time. No big deal -- the turkey went back in the oven and everyone had another drink. The turkey was pulled out again about twenty minutes later, and it still needed more roasting time. So the turkey was returned to the oven and more drinks were poured and appetizers were consumed. Finally, the turkey was checked yet again and it still hadn't finished cooking. Someone (not me!) actually had the foresight to check the oven. Duh! The oven was no longer on! Turns out that when someone was putting the stove timer on, they somehow accidentally turned the oven off at the same time. So the turkey was put back in the oven, the heat was cranked way up and we ate considerably later than we had planned!

Love reading everyone's bloopers. So hilarious! :)

It was the very first holiday meal in the first house we bought. We were just a week away from our wedding and had a houseful of guests coming. 30 pound turkey was defrosting in the jacuzzi tub full of cold water (turkey got to use the tub before I did!). The day before Thanksgiving we learn our oven no longer works. Complete dud. I had NO experience prepping a turkey, let along something this big. Imagine as I wrestled with the nearly thawed, still super cold, slippery turkey across the counter with a cleaver in my hand and less than stellar knife skills.

I was sweating and exhausted by the time I got the bird into small enough pieces to cook in the slow cooker, a steamer, and even the microwave. I feel lucky I made it out of there with all my fingers. But I tell ya, that slow cooked turkey was the best I've ever had!

I've had at least four major Thanksgiving disasters, not counting one that I wouldn't really consider a disaster but just a total overproduction – when I boned out an entire turkey so that I could make a roulade a la Julia Child -- but the one that really stands out in my mind is when I dropped a lovely platter full of ready to be served beautifully roasted and stuffed butternut squash all over my kitchen floor. Thank heaven the dining room I had at that time was not within direct sight of the kitchen, and that I was able to convince my guests that the scream emanating from the kitchen was due to my burning myself. And thank heaven none of the guests ingested any shards of china (of course I served the squash!).

Our best Thanksgiving blooper was one year when we were having the holiday at a friend's and she had decided that we should have oysters on the half shell as an appetizer. While she and I worked on stuffing and the bird, etc. we set my then boyfriend, now husband, Joel and another friend of ours, named Peter, to the task of shucking. Of course we didn't have proper equipment. I think they were using dull-ish kitchen knives and a screwdriver. Suddenly we heard Peter start shrieking and yelling "oh my god!" Joel came running into the kitchen calling, "I need a towel!" He grabbed a towel and wrapped it round his hand, which was gushing blood. Peter continued to yell and jump up and down in a panic even though it was Joel who had rammed a knife well into the palm of his hand. Megan and I ran to find bandages and antibacterial ointment. Megan's roommate was a nursing student so we figured she had to have medical supplies. Unfortunately in this situation, turned out that her bent was more toward alternative medicine. All we could find was calendula oil, "for minor cuts," and no bandages anywhere. We improvised and Joel wound up spending Thanksgiving with his hand wrapped in a maxi pad!

Peeling carrots for a dinner of 23 I wasn't thinking about the volume of peels I was sending down the garbage disposal. Why would I? a few peels for the four of us had never been a problem...

About an hour later the kitchen sink wouldn't drain. I looked into the disposal and it was all clear (what I could see past the water). Unplugged and fished around with my hand and nothing...

The mass of carrot peels had lodged in the main drain to the street and needed to get a plumber out pronto! $300 later and several lost pounds to stress of the dinner I had clear drains. We all had a good laugh after dinner was finished.

In my first year in the USA i didn't know anyone, so was not invited to any holiday meal. I decided to treat myself with a nice fancy meal only to find that EVERYTHING, including the grocery store, is close. After wondering in the streets for an hour i found one restaurant in China Town that was open, but soon discovered they only sells duck.
I'm a vegetarian.

My Thanksgiving disaster hasn't had time to become a funny memory yet, but one day I'll look back without cringing. My mothers-in-law host a huge orphan's Thanksgiving, and we arrived a little early to help out. My contribution was deep-fried brussels sprouts, and I'd brought over my deep fryer to make the dish there so the sprouts would crispy. I'd not used it before - my husband is the real cook - but I gamely filled it with oil, turned on the heat, and lowered the basket of sprouts when the oil was hot. But the oil was too hot, and there was too much of it - and when it started cascading all over the counter and the floor, I panicked and dropped the basket entirely instead of snatching it out of the oil. Catastrophe! The kitchen floor was flooded with oil, and it spattered everywhere, . Five minutes later the guests arrived, and of course everyone expected to use the kitchen. I'm still mortified by what I did to that beautiful kitchen. Luckily the sprouts were so delicious that my mothers-in-law not only forgave me, but insist I bring them to every gathering I host. I'm just not allowed to make them at their house!

Hello, My name is Jane and I am an overbaker... I cannot decide which is my favorite Thanksgiving dessert, so although we generally have only one turkey with the traditional sides, the kitchen counter is filled with an assortment of our favorite desserts: pumpkin and pecan pies, pumpkin fools, chocolate cake, chestnut roll, cookies and blueberries pecan bars (from the genius recipes). Our dog is on the smaller side and our desserts are safely out of reach on the kitchen counter. We enjoyed the meal and when it came time to bring the dishes back to the kitchen and serve our assortment of desserts, I frantically remembered that we were fostering an adorable shelter dog that was a lab-whippet mix, meaning that he had the ability to jump over 4-feet fences without missing a beat. Of course, my counter was no match and we entered frantically into the kitchen and could only stand there with our jaws dropped, looking at the remains of my prized pies, broken dishes, crumbs of cookies and two very sheepish dogs in the middle. We were lucky that the chocolate did not harm them. I had a cherry pie from the summer in the freezer that we popped into the oven and made sure to keep it away from our canine guests. To this day, I remember the look on their face and the rumbling in their stomach for the next couple of days as they recovered from this Thanksgiving sugar coma. I made sure to notify the dogs new owner of his sweet tooth and that he could jump on kitchen counters, just in case.

I was making a pumpkin pie, from scratch, as is our tradition. It went into the oven around 8 pm the night before Thanksgiving. 4 hours later, it was not yet set - I had forgotten the eggs! I'm sure that in time, the pie would have kind of set but runny, watery pumpkin pudding is not really the same as pie.

My best friend and I had cooked Thanksgiving together for 5 years, starting in graduate school with an "orphans' Thanksgiving" for everyone who couldn't afford to go home. Though there are numerous stories from these occasions, the one actual almost-disaster has to do with the turkey itself, and occurred in year 5 - when we thought we had the Thanksgiving-for-20 thing totally under control. I had purchased all of the groceries earlier in the week, loaded up the fridge, and waited for her arrival on Tuesday night. As is tradition, we spent Wednesday chopping and prepping and labeling ziploc bags with stuffing ingredients, not yet worrying about the turkey, as I'd (quite intentionally) selected an unfrozen Butterball. On Thursday morning, we woke up early, ready to slather turkey skin in sage-pancetta butter and get him roasting. When my friend went to pull out the gizzards, however, she couldn't get her hand in the cavity. It was frozen shut. Well, maybe just because the skin is thinnest around there...? Nope, the ENTIRE 19-lb. bird was frozen solid. We spent some frantic time with a water bath, but in the end simply had to purchase a new turkey right before the grocery store closed, and ply our guests with cocktails and crackers (leading to some of the aforementioned other stories). To add insult to injury, the next day when we went to have leftovers for breakfast, they, too, were frozen in the tupperware. (Needless to say, the next purchase was a new fridge.)

A few years ago, we had gutted our kitchen at the holidays (both Thanksgiving and Christmas). In the meantime, I had a temporary kitchen set up in our newly remodeled utility room--microwave, large toaster oven, slow cooker, utility sink for dishwashing.
Some friends were kind enough to invite us over for Thanksgiving dinner, but you know how it is--you want a few dishes with your own favorite recipe. So the day after Thanksgiving, I set out to make as large a pan of cornbread stuffing as would fit in the toaster oven. What I had forgotten was how hard it was to get a large, heavy pan out of that tiny space without burning myself. In the process, the entire hot, heavy ceramic pan flipped upside down onto our brand new vinyl floor. I wasn't sure whether to cry about ruining the stuffing, potentially ruining the new floor, or having nearly broken the dish. (In the end, the dish and floor were fine, and only the stuffing perished.) Writing back with hindsight, it doesn't seem so bad, but in the midst of a torn apart house full of holiday guests, it was pretty nearly my last straw.

To this day we repeat the famous words my Aunt sang one Thanksgiving. "Fire in the oven! Fire in the oven!" She didn't sound panicked or upset, but literally sang these words as if it was a funny nursery rhyme we all knew already. The adults ran to the kitchen, while us kids calmly sat around the tv, which was definitely her intention. There's not much the adults did other than keep the oven door closed and watch for a bit. We had a slightly charred turkey that year, but her words will be remembered for a long time in our family.

This brings a smile, now, but was a tragedy on that cold Thanksgiving Day. The meal had been completed. A little time before the highlight of the day----fresh pumpkin pie heaped with whipped cream. The pie was served. We were "hungry" again. The fork held the perfect morsel. We all were ready to savor----but wait . Something was wrong. Upon tasting that heavenly piece we all frowned. I had forgotten the sugar, leaving our pie lacking in a most important ingredient. Now, it is funny-----not at that time.

Well there haven't been too many cooking disasters in my family, but I can share a humorous holiday anecdote. This is the true story of Little Jack Horner, aka my half-brother. I was about 8 years old and it was, as you can imagine Thanksgiving Day. My mother had been slaving in the kitchen all day. She had just taken the pumpkin pie out of the oven and had set it on the counter too cool. She left strict instructions that I was not to touch it. So like any small child confronted with her absolute favorite dessert and the directive NOT to touch, I stood and stared at it willing it to cool faster, salivating copiously all the while. Overcome by impatience, I very gently put one finger on the top of the pie, very careful not to leave any marks. It was still quite warm. Unbeknownst to me, my half-brother must have been watch because a few hours later I was called into the kitchen and asked if I had touched the pie. I knew I had, but since I had taken such care to leave no evidence, I did what any normal child would do, I lied through my teeth. I swore up and down that I hadn't touched the pie but my mother wouldn't believe me...and then she revealed why. SOMEONE...had stuck their finger right into the middle of the pie leaving a 2 inch pit dead center! Years later while reminiscing with my mother, she reminded me of this story, which honestly I had completely forgotten. After 20 years I was finally able to convince her that it hadn't been me...although I did have to cop to being a little bit naughty at the time. The moral of this story, cover your pies! ;)

Here's a note to industrial designers and manufacturers everywhere from our official user field test: if you put the touch-pad oven controls at bum-level, they will be bumped. If it is pre-turkey cocktail hour--which always ends up in the kitchen by the way--nobody will notice, and dinner will be served promptly at midnight! It was a very fun Thanksgiving!

We were hosting a big Thanksgiving dinner with a number of friends and neighbors. In my hurry to prep the vegetables, I put too many peels down the disposal, causing a major plumbing crisis with a completely clogged kitchen sink and shredded tuber rinds rising up from the guest bathroom sink. My husband tried to unclog the drain with our 25 foot plumbing snake, but to no avail. We called the neighbors and were almost ready to change the venue to their house, but they also offered to bring over their 30 foot snake. They came over and we all rolled up our sleeves and ran back and forth checking drains, and miraculously the extra five feet did the trick and we had gotten the sink unclogged just when the rest of the guests started to arrive. It definitely made me thankful to have such helpful and understanding neighbors.

Well, it's my Nana's story, but a favorite in my family: A huge family Thanksgiving dinner was being prepared at my grandmother's house. She and my great-aunt took the turkey out to check it, put it on the counter, decided it needed a bit longer and put it back in the oven. A little while later, when they noticed a strange smell, they realized that when they'd put the turkey back into the roasting pan, a bar of soap had come along for the ride! The bird was fortunately fine, but the drippings were ruined. They would have gotten away without telling anyone except that my great-aunt couldn't stop giggling every time someone asked for gravy!

First off I rarely cook myself, so cooking fails are pretty common for me. Even when I follow recipes exactly they still don't turn out right. One year I attempted to make a simple chicken noodle soup, but it just ended up tasting like buttery carrots in warm water. Hopefully if I win an app it will help me cook a tasty meal. Or maybe I'm a helpless cook.

I was making a chocolate cake with a raspberry creme filling. The cake was from scratch so I was melting chocolate to then pour into the batter. I was at my friend's house making it and didn't realize the 'lock' function on her kitchen aid mixture was broken. Well, because it wasn't my kitchen, I wasn't used I couldn't get into my groove (i.e. knowing where everything is and having time down right). Well, I started pouring the cooling melted chocolate into the batter and run into the other room while it was mixing to grab something. I return, and the chocolate cooled enough that some of it hardened, and as some of the cooled, hardened chocolate caught the mixing paddle and caused the top to lift, while still mixing at full speed and batter flew EVERYWHERE!!!!! There was chocolate batter on the ceiling, the floor, the bookshelves, the cabinets, the crevices of the fridge - EVERYWHERE. We found traces of batter for months!

My father's last Thanksgiving before he died was memorable for so many reasons- He had cancer that slowly spread into his brain, (which, yes, was very sad) but also left us with some of our most funny memories. One being when he demanded our gorgeous frozen organic turkey MUST be cut in half to cook properly. With a chainsaw. My brother dutifully donned safety goggle, revved the chainsaw, and slowly lowered the blade to the icy bird... only to stare in horror as the blade sank into the side of the turkey and flung it across the table and out the garage door. His second try was marginally more successful, and in the end a wily combination of zip ties and industrial clams held the bird down while my dad's fervent fowl wishes were fulfilled. The turkey did taste great in the end, and it is one of my all-time favorite memories.

As part of our holiday menu one year, I planned to make a Guinness chocolate cake. I was staying with my in-laws, so my brother-in-law did the shopping and... forgot to buy Guinness. Which we didn't realize until the last minute. So my sister-in-law and I went in search of an open liquor store. No luck, everything was closed. However! We tried calling a local bar and asked if they would be willing to sell us some Guinness "to go". Now, this is pretty illegal under any liquor license, but it wasn't for drinking it was for a cake! So we were really happy when they said on the phone that they would do it. As we headed out the door to pick it up, we promised that we wouldn't get arrested... This was a pretty funny joke until my sister-in-law pulled up to the bar. She had neglected to tell me that the bar shared a parking lot with the local police station! Fortunately, our heist, and the cake, were both successful :)

My story is about my mom's blooper, and my sister & my response to it. A few years ago, we had a full house for Thanksgiving, and I think my mom was a bit stressed. We were all in the living room when we heard a loud crash in the kitchen, and ran in to find my mom standing there, covered in yams. Yams on the floor, on the walls... yams everywhere. My dad looked at the mess and said "what happened?" Suddenly my mom burst into tears and yelled "THE F***ING YAMS!" My mom NEVER uses such language, so of course the whole family fell on the floor laughing, which totally didn't help matters. The next year, my sister and I came out on Thanksgiving morning, wearing shirts we made that had a little cartoon yam, and said my mom's now famous catchphrase. My dad saw it first, burst into laughter. My mom nearly died when she saw the shirts, which (along with her catchphrase) are now a Thanksgiving tradition in my family.

Alas, like many others my first Thanksgiving feast had gone awry. I spent a heap of cash on a straight-from-the-farm bird and followed recipe directions to the letter. While the turkey was roasting I made every side dish from scratch.
Menu:
Sage stuffing from homemade breadcrumbs
Buttermilk mashed potatoes
Sauteed haricot vert with crispy garlic
Giblet Gravy
Spiced cranberry sauce
Whipped sweet potatoes with apples and candied pecans
Silkened pumpkin pie
....Raw, bloody turkey....
I set the table, spilling with side dishes. In my lack of turkey culinary prowess I followed the tiny pop up timer instead of my recipe (or instincts). I pulled my eco-conscious farm-to-table turkey out of the oven, lovingly tented it to let it rest and counted down the seconds until carving. And as my menu indicated, upon carving, it was totally raw and bloody inside. MAJOR disappointment and totally embarrassing. I smiled, put the turkey back in the oven, we devoured the sides and ate the turkey for dessert.

There was plenty of leftover roast turkey on the carcass. We were going to serve it Friday night. All of a sudden, there was a drip, drip, drip from above, splashing all over the turkey. The upstairs neighbors had gone away for the long weekend and their house was flooding from some unknown water source (ignorance is bliss). The drip became a waterfall that poured all the way down to the lobby of the building. Guest for Friday night was sent home, hungry, with effusive apologies, but really what else could we do under the circumstances...

It was my first Thanksgiving cooking for the family. I was 19, in my first apartment and was excited to strut my stuff. It was several hours into turkey roasting when I decided to baste the, so far, beautiful bird. . I pulled the rack out but left the twenty something pound bird on it instead of lifting it out. Turning away to grab the baster is when it happened. The weight of the turkey tilted the rack into sort of a slide like apparatus. On which my turkey, the juices, the roaster, the stuffing inside all slid down the rack at an amazing speed and smashed into the cupboards across the kitchen and all over the floor. I'm ashamed to admit, the family and I ate the turkey, sans gravy, after I got over the shock of watching my food and floor have a head on collision. I tidied it up and washed it as best as I could and returned it to the oven. Lesson learned that day? Lift! Baste. Return.

The first year I cooked Thanksgiving dinner, it was just for my boyfriend and I, so I cut most of the recipes I was making in half. For the creamed spinach, I cut the amount of spinach in half forgot to do the same to the cream. Of course, this is certainly not the most terrible outcome, and it seemed to honor the spirit of bounty and richness that accompanies the holiday. Plus, we were able to add a soup course to the meal (Cream and Spinach Soup).

The “No Thank You, Mother!” Stuffing Incident: My boys were young, and the only bread I had on hand was the soft half whole wheat, half white flour potato bread (Pullman loaf) that I regularly made in those days for the boys’ sandwiches. The bread had a nice soft, chewy crust – exactly the ways my sons preferred it. I hadn’t gotten the memo on toasting chunks of bread before making stuffing, or letting the bread sit out overnight to get stale. I also hadn’t ever heard of making stuffing in a casserole dish to get a nice crunchy top. I *had* gotten the memo on adding some broth to stuffing, but of course I didn’t pay any attention to how much, or under what circumstances; I doubt that my stuffin even needed it, but I added more than would have been advised, in any case. I also chopped up and added a couple of apples, which turned out to be nice and juicy. You know where I’m going with this. When I took the stuffing out, it was a giant, if fragrant, blob of mush. The barely perceptible bits of celery (cut very small because it was not universally appreciated in larger pieces) and a few sad apple peels did little to help. When it came time to serve up, both boys – who were generally pretty open minded about the food served in our house – looked at it with decidedly suspicious “You’ve got to be kidding” looks on their faces and moved onto the mashed potatoes. I put gravy on my lump of the stuff and enjoyed the way it tasted, but was generally sympathetic with the boys’ “Not on my plate, thank you!” reaction. If it happened again, I’d probably break it down into small bits and roast them in the oven to use in hash the next day. All my stuffing has been baked outside the turkey since then. I eventually got the memo on toasting chunks of bread in the oven, so I’ve done that exclusively since then, as well. The excellent recipe submitted by melissav in 2009 for ciabatta, mushroom and chorizo stuffing has been requested each year since. The boys are looking forward to it! ;o)

My mom and I were making pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. I had the most gorgeous pie. The crust was flaky and golden, and the filling was perfectly cooked with a little brown around the edges, just how we like it. In the commotion of the kitchen, the oven timer went off. I was elbow deep in something, and my mom could only find one oven mitt at the moment, so she tried to take the pie out with one hand. She lost her grip and dropped the pie! It landed face down in the still 350 degree oven. The kitchen immediately filled with huge billowing black smoke. The smoke alarm went off, the dog started barking hysterically, and my mom and I were running all over the house trying to open the windows and waft the smoke out. It was an eventful day.