At the risk of being accused of thread creep, I'll take up the wonderful subject of what to do with the carcass.

Around our house, the Thanksgiving, Xmas, etc. turkeys are seen as more or less the minor leagues, the necessary preliminaries to Dad's (that's me) turkey noodle soup.

When my Beautiful Wife and I share a holiday meal with my grown daughter (at our house or hers), it's understood that there need to be two turkeys roasted, and I am required to make two batches (at least) of my famous dinner rolls.

After the festive dinner, the leftovers (of which there are carefully plenty) are equitably divided--except!--that I get both carcasses. That same night the stock pot gets going with the carcasses, being fanatically skimmed. After X number of hours(according to taste and fancy) of simmering, the bones are removed and onions, carrots, celery, and various vegetable oddments are added for their cooking cycle.

Sometime in here (they need to dry some before cooking), I make homemade egg noodles, for last-minute cooking in the glorious soup. Don't talk to me about commercial noodles, either. What was good enough for my maternal grandmother (one of the world's great plain cooks) is barely good enough for me!

My daughter makes a claim on a share of the resulting ambrosia.

Dave Oesterreich