Experts talk turkey to save Thanksgiving

NAPERVILLE, Illinois — Andrea Balitewicz and her team are super heroes this time of the year. The 50 or so experts man the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line throughout the holiday season to provide cooks across the United States and Canada with information on thawing, brining, cooking, smoking, grilling and frying the star of the Thanksgiving meal — turkey. The talk-line opens Nov. 1 and continues through the day after Thanksgiving. Then they'll off the weekend and work in December through Christmas Eve. The experts answer a variety of questions about turkey via phone calls and computers. (In addition to the talk-line (1-800-BUTTERBALL), the company can also answer questions and offer advice via Facebook, Twitter, live chats, emails, texts and on its website.) Balitewicz sounded quite chipper when she answered the telephone at the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line headquarters in Naperville, Illinois, where she works as a supervisor. "We're doing great," she said. "We are busy, busy in our season here." The calls have been ramping up, she noted. "We've got a lot more calls this week, and it's good because people are preparing a little bit early and we'll still be busy through Thanksgiving. But it's nice to get some calls early, too," said Balitewicz. The week of Thanksgiving is the busiest week of the season, she said. "The Thursday before seems to be THE DAY, and we call that day our National Thaw Your Turkey Day," she said. The following weekend, everybody purchases their turkeys and then calls the turkey-line, she laughed. Thanksgiving Day is the busiest day of the season, according to Balitewicz. The talk-line specialists will handle at least 10,000 calls. One of the questions centers around the giblets, usually the liver, gizzard, neck, kidneys and heart, that can be found in a bag inside the bird. "People will call us and we'll give them good tips on how to use that if they want to," she said. The program got its start in 1981, when six home economists worked the phones that holiday season to answer about 11,000 turkey-cooking questions. Since then, the turkey-line has grown, both in number of calls answered and experts responding. Balitewicz, who is celebrating her eighth season working with the turkey-line, said her passion for cooking started at an early age while experimenting at home and doing recipe demonstrations for 4-H competitions. Her previous work experience includes recipe development and live food demonstrations. At the Pampered Chef, she developed the recipes the sales team used to promote kitchen tools. During her time at Kraft Foods, Balitewicz held many positions in the Kraft Kitchens test kitchens. In partnership with the marketing team, she developed recipes, food content and tips to support brands such as Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and Jell-O. She also developed and ran a cooking school program and was the Kraft Kitchens media spokesperson for cookbook launches. "Just like many of the people that work on the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line, we all have culinary related degrees," she said. "And it was just a good time in my career where opportunities came up to talk turkey to folks. And I was already talking to my girlfriends, talking to my family. They always would come to me with their cooking questions." The turkey-line felt like a natural fit. "We all have that cooking passion and we all love to help people," she said. "It's just such a feel-good job." Balitewicz estimates that she's made hundreds of turkeys in her career. She always makes Thanksgiving dinner for her family of about 15 people on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. She also does a lot of testing for Butterball in the test kitchen involving different methods. "Freshman" operators learn the answers by attending an intensive Butterball University, while returning experts take an advanced course where they learn, among other things, different ways to cook a turkey. The number one question at the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line is about thawing a turkey. Butterball recommends an entire 24 hour day for every 4 pounds of turkey - so a 20-pound turkey will take five days to thaw in the refrigerator. "Once it's thawed, you have four days that the meat is still good," Balitewicz said. Callers have come up with some very creative ideas for this process. They didn't have room in the refrigerator. Can they use the cold water thawing method and put it in the bathtub instead, or maybe the hot tub. Can they put it outside in the snow to keep it cold? Balitewicz recommends they keep it in the sink and continually refresh the cold water - 1 pound every 30 minutes. "Otherwise the water temperature is as cold as the turkey and then it won't thaw," she said. "We want to make sure they're doing it safely to have a good Thanksgiving dinner," she said. Frying was popular a couple of years ago, she said. But smoking and grilling have taken over that method. "Grilling is a great method, and that's one of the homework assignments the staff had a few years back," Balitewicz said. "And that helps us just get ready for the calls. So we each had to prepare a turkey on our grill at home." Crockpots work well for a small boneless roast or a bone-in breast. It just needs to fit the pot, she said. Turkeys can also be cooked in a countertop electric roaster. "People love doing that," she said. "They like it because they're making their turkey on the counter and side dishes in the oven. It really does save some space." Balitewicz said one person call and say their turkey had been in the oven but they couldn't smell it cooking. "We have to become like investigators. We ask them questions. It turns out they never turned the oven on," she laughed. "But luckily it was fine. It had only been a little bit of time." Usually people call in for information, but they also love to share stories, Balitewicz said. That's one of the reasons they have partnered with a company called StoryCorps. People can go to the Butterball website and add a story that will go into the national story archive. "It's just like a collection of stories. Then you have the option to put it in the Library of Congress, where they're going to keep that forever. So for generations you can go back and listen to grandma telling a story about Thanksgiving or maybe a mistake or a funny story," she said. Balitewicz said she's had her own flops or near misses. One year she forgot to thaw her turkey. Another year, she forgot to call her mom with instructions for cooking the turkey in a convection oven. "So mom had to call the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line to get the information. I was working and she couldn't get a hold of me." she laughed. "I really enjoy talking to people and helping them solve an issue, answer a burning question or calming them down," she added. "We give them the confidence they need to have a more successful and relaxed celebration."