The turkey is a tyrant. It is the centerpiece of American Thanksgiving, but it is also the great and unforgiving monopolizer of the oven. For a feast where the sides—stuffing! yams! baked mac! veggies with maple syrup on them!—are arguably the true and most beloved main event, the turkey often gets in the way.
I have made multiple Thanksgiving feasts already this year while testing Thanksgiving delivery meal kits—meals complete with multitudes of sides and dessert. One problem remained constant: oven space. With a turkey in your oven for hours at a time, plotting the logistics of cooking five sides started to feel like a spreadsheet endeavor to rival corporate forensic accounting.
By the time I planned out my second big turkey feast—a complicated filing system of recipe cards, all devoted to avoiding the multi-hour stay of the turkey in the oven—I realized that I should have paid better attention to my father over the years.
If I had, I'd have known that the best place for a holiday meat is always outside, on a grill or a smoker.
Courtesy of Weber
My father's stalwart belief—never stated out loud but clear to all observers—was that the best place to be when you have 23 people in your house is on the back patio. So while I was growing up, that's often where he was: outside, cooking meat. It's a perfectly useful activity that provides perfect deniability—a reason to leave the house that can't be questioned.