In light of the upcoming holiday for gluttony and good deals, I thought I’d give y’all a few tips for preparing and executing the perfect Thanksgiving dinner.

Turkey

1. You cannot cook a whole turkey. Nobody likes the dark meat, and the valuable gobble hooter meat will be drier than my wit by the time the rest of the bird is done. If anyone claims to like the dark meat, you really shouldn’t waste your time and effort cooking for them. Give them a can of Vienna \vi-EE-nuh\ sausages, a sleeve of store brand saltines, and send them out to the back porch. They won’t know the difference.
2. For super juicy breasts, you have to brine them, and as far as I know, this only works for turkeys.
3. Put the turkey in the smoker at about 225 F for 30 minutes. But, in order for it to have any effect, your smoker needs to bellow smoke like Tommy Chong’s van in a Krystal drive thru at 3 am.
4. Then, use a sous vide to bring the meat to 155 F. It should take a couple hours. If you aren’t familiar with a sous vide, it’s like a hot tub for your meat. Better eating through science.
5. To get that golden skin like the lady down the street who spends the whole summer at the pool smoking Virginia Slim 120s, pat it dry with an UNUSED paper towel, and put a blow torch to it. I prefer a butane torch. Oxy-acetylene torches are a hassle and can leave soot all over the bird or burn a hole in it if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Dressing

1. If you use Jiffy corn muffin mix or put sugar in the cornbread you use to make your dressing, you suck at life. Don’t do it. But, if you just have to, get yourself a can of Viennas and a sleeve of crackers, and have your Thanksgiving meal on the back porch with your dark meat loser friends.
2. Additionally, yellow corn meal is unacceptable. It is only acceptable in Jiffy mix corn muffins, and they’re only acceptable in states that didn’t secede.
3. Sage is unnecessary. It’s sole purpose is to smoke bad juju out of your house.
4. Any vegetables (onions or celery only) must be sautéed to the point they’re no longer crunchy before being added. Continuity of texture is God’s 12th commandment right behind putting bacon in your butterbeans.
5. If you feel the need to get fancy, oyster dressing is acceptable, but squash dressing is not. Squash is supposed be sliced thinly, (white) corn meal battered, and fried only. (14th commandment)

Gravy

1. It should not be brown. Brown gravy is for rice, hamburger steak, and biscuits.
2. Giblets are for catfish bait, not gravy.
3. It must be served in a gravy boat with one of those spoons that’s as unwieldy as using a garden hose for a golf bat.

Cranberry Sauce

1. It’s to come from a can in a perfectly homogenous gelatinous cylinder and be made by Ocean Spray.
2. Have some extra Vienna sausages and crackers for those that want homemade sauce made from fresh cranberries.

Side Dishes

1. Green bean casserole must be made with Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup and topped with a generous mound of French fried onions. French cut green beans are unacceptable, also.
2. Sweet potatoes are largely open to interpretation as long as the dish is comprised of at least 1\3 sugar or syrup in one form or another. Preferred toppings are toasted marshmallow or pecan crunch.
3. Butterbeans are a necessity but if you put boiled okra in them, join your outcast friends on the back porch with your Vienna sausages and crackers because you just ruined the whole Thanksgiving holiday for everyone.
4. Pict Sweet yellow creamed corn with a generous knob of butter is almost impossible to screw up. Corn soufflé is also an acceptable variation.
5. Mashed potatoes with roasted garlic, goat cheese, and cream cheese. You can have a separate gravy boat with brown gravy for the potatoes, but if you see anyone put it on their dressing, take their plate and send them to the porch.
6. For your health-conscious diners, a simple fruit salad is an option. Mix up some red Jello, dump in a couple cans of Dole mixed fruit in syrup, throw it in a fancy bowl, and pop it in the fridge until it jiggles instead of sloshes.

Desserts

1. Stick to the basics.
2. Don’t experiment with something you saw on the Food Network Thanksgiving Special.
3. If you make pecan pie, be damn sure you don’t have any shell fragments in your pecans. Mass murders have happened because of this travesty. I’m pretty sure it’s why Japan bombed Pearl Harbor about a week after Thanksgiving.
4. Pumpkins are for Jack-O-Lanterns not pies. Sweet potatoes are the correct pie filling if somebody wants an orange pie. Just tell them it’s pumpkin if they insist on pumpkin pie. If they call you out on it, you know where to send them.
5. Do not make anything sugar-free. Just make sure you tell your diabetic friends to bring extra insulin.

Vegans

Give them a can of Viennas and tell them it’s tofu. They’ll think it’s the best tofu they’ve ever had.

Gobble gobble, y’all!