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Thanksgiving S.O.S.: Hot lines at the ready for holiday cooking emergencies
Published: November 21, 2007
No matter how dreadful your holiday dinner disaster story is, chances are Mary Clingman can top it.
After 27 years as one of the reassuring voices on the other end of the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line, she has heard just about everything - including when things go bad in a big way.
"One of the first calls was a lady who called and said her kitchen was on fire," Clingman recalls. "I told her to hang up and call the fire department."
The operators who staff the cooking hot lines help numerous cooks navigate the mishaps, blunders and outright silliness sometimes involved in preparing holiday feasts.
And thanks to all those blunders, people like Robyn Sargent have great stories to tell.
Sargent is a baking instructor at the King Arthur Flour Co. in Norwich, Vt. She helped launch the company's Baker's Hotline in 1993. Her favorite disaster story involves a woman who called while trying to bake bread.
Sargent says the woman described how the dough she had put in the oven to rise was oozing out the sides of her oven and gushing onto the floor in volcano-like bursts.
Turns out the woman took the recipe literally when it said add a packet of yeast. Sargent says the woman didn't realize the recipe meant a 2 1/4-teaspoon packet, not the 1-pound package she had bought.
At the Ocean Spray Consumer Helpline, calls have ranged from odd ("Help! I can't get the sauce out of the can!") to weird ("Can I dye my hair with your cranberry juice?") to disturbing ("Can I give cranberry juice to my cat for its bladder infection?").
Speaking of cats, one caller to the Foster Farms Turkey Helpline wanted to know how to fix a turkey that the family cat had chewed holes into prior to roasting. Foster Farms spokeswoman Teresa Lenz says the woman was urged to buy a new bird.
Becky Wahlund, director of test kitchens at Land O'Lakes, says the company's former holiday baking hot line used to get some hilarious calls, including the woman who asked whether she could substitute tartar sauce for cream of tartar.
Another caller who lived in a high-rise apartment requested high-altitude baking instructions.
Then there's Clingman's kitty litter incident.
After 27 years as one of the reassuring voices on the other end of the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line, she has heard just about everything - including when things go bad in a big way.
"One of the first calls was a lady who called and said her kitchen was on fire," Clingman recalls. "I told her to hang up and call the fire department."
The operators who staff the cooking hot lines help numerous cooks navigate the mishaps, blunders and outright silliness sometimes involved in preparing holiday feasts.
And thanks to all those blunders, people like Robyn Sargent have great stories to tell.
Sargent is a baking instructor at the King Arthur Flour Co. in Norwich, Vt. She helped launch the company's Baker's Hotline in 1993. Her favorite disaster story involves a woman who called while trying to bake bread.
Sargent says the woman described how the dough she had put in the oven to rise was oozing out the sides of her oven and gushing onto the floor in volcano-like bursts.
Turns out the woman took the recipe literally when it said add a packet of yeast. Sargent says the woman didn't realize the recipe meant a 2 1/4-teaspoon packet, not the 1-pound package she had bought.
At the Ocean Spray Consumer Helpline, calls have ranged from odd ("Help! I can't get the sauce out of the can!") to weird ("Can I dye my hair with your cranberry juice?") to disturbing ("Can I give cranberry juice to my cat for its bladder infection?").
Speaking of cats, one caller to the Foster Farms Turkey Helpline wanted to know how to fix a turkey that the family cat had chewed holes into prior to roasting. Foster Farms spokeswoman Teresa Lenz says the woman was urged to buy a new bird.
Becky Wahlund, director of test kitchens at Land O'Lakes, says the company's former holiday baking hot line used to get some hilarious calls, including the woman who asked whether she could substitute tartar sauce for cream of tartar.
Another caller who lived in a high-rise apartment requested high-altitude baking instructions.
Then there's Clingman's kitty litter incident.
A caller from Georgia wanted advice from the Butterball folks on cooking a turkey inside her husband's new gas grill. The catch was that her husband didn't want the grill to get dirty, so he'd filled it with kitty litter to absorb the grease.
Would it be OK to grill the turkey with the litter? Clingman was quick to tell her no, she didn't think so.
Help is just a call or click away
Turkey still frozen and dinner just an hour away? The bread won't rise? Still not sure what temperature you're supposed to cook stuffing to? These holiday cooking hot lines are designed to help with any problem:
* Crisco Pie Hotline: 877-367-7438
* Butterball Turkey Talk-Line: 800-BUTTERBALL or http://www.butterball.com
* Empire Kosher poultry customer hot line: 800-367-4734 or http://www.empirekosher.com/index.htm
r Fleischmann's Yeast Baker's Help Line: 800-777-4959
* Nestle Toll House Baking Information Line: 800-637-8537
* Ocean Spray consumer help line: 800-662-3263 or http://www.oceanspray.com
* Perdue consumer help line: 800-473-7383 or http://www.perdue.com
* King Arthur Flour Co.'s Bakers Hotline: 802-649-3717 or e-mail questions to bakerskingarthurflour.com
* Reynolds Turkey Tips Hotline: 800-745-4000 or http://www.reynoldskitchens.com
* U.S. Department of Agriculture Meat and Poultry Hotline: 888-674-6854 or http://www.fsis.usda.gov/home/index.asp
* Foster Farms Turkey Helpline: 800-255-7227 or http://www.fosterfarms.com
* General Mills: 800-446-1898
- Associated Press
