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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. It's Wednesday, so those of you taking the lead in the kitchen for the Thanksgiving meal know you have about 24 hours to get it done. Some of you may have started prepping days ago. Some, like our senior producer, Kate Hinds, have a spreadsheet for the occasion that you made a month ago, or some of you might be picking up things at the last minute. Whatever category you fall into, we have you covered.

With me now to take your calls, your ideas, and questions about cooking for Thanksgiving is New York Times food columnist Melissa Clark. Hey, Melissa.

Melissa Clark: Hey, Alison.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, let's hear it. Are you in the midst of preparing your cooking for the Thanksgiving meal? How's it going? What's on your menu this year? 212-433-WNYC. Do you have a way to cook your stuffing, turkey, or another side dish that you think is really good and you want to share your secret? 212-433-9692. Or maybe you have a question you'd like to ask Melissa. 212-433-9692. This is already a text that's come in, so I'm just going to go for it.

It says, "Hey, Melissa, do you ever add cream cheese to mashed potatoes, as some recipes call for? Also, can I make mashed potatoes in the morning for evening dinner? How do I keep them warm or warm them up? Thanks, Rema." What do you say to our first question?

Melissa Clark: I love it. Let's get straight to the mashed potatoes. Yes on the cream cheese. What's great about adding cream cheese to your mashed potatoes is it really helps stabilize them, so you can do your mashed potatoes in the morning, no problem. You add your cream cheese. It keeps everything nice and velvety and it keeps it smooth. I really like to warm mashed potatoes up in the microwave. That is my go to because it's a moist environment. They won't dry out.

If you do them in the oven, you absolutely need to cover them because otherwise you're going to get a crust which you may not want, and it's hard to do them in a pot because you have to keep stirring or they might get a little charred on the bottom. My advice, make them ahead and then just pop them in the microwave right before serving. You are good.

Alison Stewart: A big challenge when you're making a big meal like this is timing. The turkey takes several hours to prepare, but you want to have them in time with your sides ready. What's your general work schedule?

Melissa Clark: I think that you want to start with things that can get reheated. Pretty much depending on how big your turkey is and whether you're spatchcocking it, you want to get that in about X amount of time, whatever your recipe says, so let's just say three hours ahead or two and a half hours ahead, and then plus at least 20 minutes to let it rest, and it's going to take you about, say, another 20 minutes to carve it. Let's say three hours and 45 minutes before you want it on the table.

That is what you're working around, because that's the hardest thing. You don't want your turkey to get cold, and you don't want to be waiting for it, so plan around that period of time. Everything else, for the most part, can get reheated. You can do your mashed potatoes ahead, you absolutely can do your cranberry sauce ahead, and most vegetables can be reheated. I say start with your turkey and work backward from there.

Alison Stewart: Let's say you're a little late to the party. You decide you haven't been to the store yet, you're going to go tonight, but your turkey sold out, your cranberries are sold out, your yams are sold out. What are some hacks you might recommend?

Melissa Clark: [laughs] I know this happens. Unfortunately, I have seen the mad rush. I have seen it with my own eyes. Okay, so you go to the supermarket, there are no turkeys, or maybe there's one turkey and it's £30 or something ridiculous, you're like, "This is not going to fit in my oven." Look around the meat section because chances are there's going to be a turkey breast, even if it's a boneless breast or maybe bone in. There might be some turkey thighs.

This is actually a really good thing because I think cooking turkey parts is going to be a lot easier for people because when you do your turkey parts as opposed to the whole bird, it's really hard to get the timing right on a whole bird. The breast tends to overcook before the legs are done. If you're cooking turkey parts, you can do them on-- I like to do them on two separate pans. Your dark meat is in one pan, your white meat is in the other pan, and then you cook them, and when they're done, you just pull them out of the oven. The thing about dark meat is that it's very forgiving.

Here's the thing. If you have to get turkey parts because you can't get a whole turkey or because you prefer it, make sure to put your dark meat in the oven first because it takes longer. Maybe give it a 15-minute head start, and then you put your white meat in and it's all going to come out. Cranberries are harder because cranberry sauce is just so iconic. What I recommend is if you can't get cranberries, and don't forget to look in the freezer because a lot of stores carry frozen cranberries, but if you can't get any kind of cranberry, look in the nuts section and buy dried cranberries, craisins.

Those they'll probably have. Plump them up in a little bit of liquid, maybe some apple cider on the stove, and then add something like chopped pear or chopped apple or maybe chopped up orange segments. This is going to be a slightly different version of a cranberry sauce, but you will still get that beautiful color and that cranberry tartness onto the table. Alison, what was the last thing? Sweet potatoes? Was that-- [crosstalk]

Alison Stewart: Yes, sweet potatoes.

Melissa Clark: Sweet potatoes and squash, pretty much interchangeable. As long as you have something orange on the table, you're good. If you can't find yams, look for butternut squash, and vice versa. Most recipes for those two are pretty close together. I mean, if you're going to roast, you can roast one, you can roast the other. That is going to be interchangeable. I wouldn't do marshmallows on top of your squash, though. That's the only thing. You might have to just serve your marshmallows separately. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: Let's take some calls. Rachel from Manhattan. Rachel, go for it.

Rachel: I just want to thank you, Melissa, for so many wonderful meals. I rely on you almost totally. Your buttermilk pancakes are the best I ever had. Thank you, thank you for all the help you've been.

Melissa Clark: Aw, thank you.

Alison Stewart: Oh, just a shout out. We love it.

Melissa Clark: We love it. No questions?

Alison Stewart: No questions. Let's talk to Donna on line two. She has a question. Hi, Donna.

Donna: Good afternoon. I have a 20-pound frozen turkey. It was frozen. It's been in the refrigerator since Monday and it's defrosting, but if it's still partially frozen tomorrow morning when I plan to put it in the oven, what would your suggestion be? How much longer to cook it or?

Melissa Clark: Yeah, so this is what-- [crosstalk]

Donna: When do I remove the plastic bags that are in there with the giblets and stuff if I can't get them out because it's too frozen?

Melissa Clark: Ah, okay. Yes, this is a great question. This happens to a lot of people, even people who think that they're buying a fresh turkey, often those turkeys are stored at such a low temperature that they are practically frozen or they're a little bit frozen on the inside. This is just for everybody. If you haven't checked the inside of your turkey, today is the day. Unwrap the whole thing, stick your hand in there, and see if it's frozen and try to get that-- really pry that bag of giblets out because that bag of giblets is actually-- it's almost like insulation, and it's going to keep the turkey frozen longer.

Do what you can do to get that bag of giblets out, even if it means a little bit of warm water in there, just loosen it and get it out. Then, once you have the giblets out, take your turkey, pat it dry, put it on a sheet pan uncovered in your fridge, and that is going to help it defrost. It needs the air to circulate, so it will defrost more quickly out of the plastic bag than in the bag. This is for you, and this is for everyone else who's thinking about their turkey right now.

Go in and check it and make sure that if it's still a little bit frozen, that you take action right now. Then, by overnight, it should be okay. If tomorrow morning your turkey is still a little bit frozen, early in the morning, take it out-- You can leave your turkey out of the fridge for two hours if it's still a little frozen and then put it directly in the oven, and that is also going to help it along. Just keep track of it. That's a great question. Thank you for that.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Jean from Brooklyn. Hi, Jean. Thanks for calling All Of It. You're on with Melissa Clark.

Jean: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I loved gravy as a kid, but I haven't been able to get it the way I had it. I'm wondering if you have any recommendations for making a good gravy.

Melissa Clark: Yes, Jean, that's a great question. I have changed the way I do gravy these days. I would do it at the last minute. The turkey would be out of the pan. I would take the roasting pan and I would put the flour in it and try to make it at the last minute. A few years ago, actually, like 10 years ago, I stopped doing that because first of all, it's crazy making right before you're serving your turkey to stop and make gravy. What I do now, and I highly recommend this, is I make a make-ahead gravy with.

We have a great make-ahead gravy recipe at nytcooking.com. There's other ones out there, and there's a couple of ways to get the most flavor out of your make-ahead gravy. First thing is I do one with onions, and when you're cooking your onions, you need to get them dark brown, get them really dark brown. It's going to take a while because that caramelized flavor is going to be the basis. It's going to just be the foundation of your gravy, so good flavor from the onions.

I add a little bit of wine, a little white wine to mine because that acidity, it rounds it out, makes a really good flavor. Then, you'll do your flour, you'll do your butter, you'll add your stock, you'll cook it. It's going to look very pale, and that's okay. It will still have good flavor, but what you want to do is-- and this is the most important part. After your turkey comes out of the oven, you take those turkey drippings from the bottom of the pan and you pour them into this make-ahead gravy. The drippings are what's going to make it shine.

They're going to give so much flavor. This is my advice for gravy for the best flavor, and also for the easiest lift on Thanksgiving.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Melissa Clark, New York Times food columnist and cookbook author. She's helping us out with our Thanksgiving cooking. We'll have more after a quick break. This is All Of It.

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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. We are finishing out the hour with Melissa Clark, New York Times food columnist and cookbook author. She's here for some last-minute Thanksgiving prep. Okay. My spies have told me, Melissa, that you are going rogue this Thanksgiving.

Melissa Clark: [laughs] I am.

Alison Stewart: What are you doing?

Melissa Clark: I'm doing duck. I know, I know. I'm supposed to be doing turkey like everybody else, but honestly, by the time we reporters at NYT Cooking have done Thanksgiving, we've already made many, many turkeys this year. I roasted a turkey for a nearby homeless shelter. I have made so many turkeys. By tomorrow, I'm going to be ready to eat something else. I have some duck breasts curing right now. We've got garlic and lots of herbs and salt on them.

Tomorrow I'm going to sear them off right before dinner, and then the rest of the meal is going to be very classic, but I'm going to be happy to eat something else. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: Got a text here for you. "Melissa, I bought my turkey from a butcher and asked them to wet brine it. When do I take it out of the brine? Tonight? Tomorrow morning?"

Melissa Clark: Okay, tonight. Take it out as soon as possible. If it's brined already, say for a day or two, what you want to do now is you want to dry out that skin, because the skin is obviously very wet from the wet brine, and turkey skin is one of just the most delicious parts of the turkey, so you want to get it to be crispy and golden. The way to do that is take it out of the brine, pat it all over with paper towels, put it on a rack, on a roasting pan, or a tray in your fridge, and let the air circulate and let the skin dry out.

Then, tomorrow, when you roast it, you're going to see the skin is going to tighten. It's going to look a little dry, and that is exactly what you want. Then, a little bit of oil or butter into the oven, and that turkey skin is going to come out crispy and delicious.

Alison Stewart: We have two soup texts, so I'll try to combine them into one. This one says, "I'm interested in soup because I'm bringing soup. How do you transport soup? I've decanted it to several mason jars." That's one. The second one says, "Should I bring throwaway bowls so that you don't have to do any dishes on my account. I love the host and don't want to make any more work for them cleaning up." All right. One, how do you bring it? Two, should I bring throwaway bowls?

Melissa Clark: Oh my gosh. Whoever wrote that in there, the best guests ever, and they can come to my house with their soup and their bowls. That is lovely. Okay, so mason jars are great. I mean, containers, those big plastic containers that you get soup in from takeout orders, I keep those around. Big yogurt containers. It doesn't matter. The only thing is, if you're going to transfer your soup to containers, you need to talk to your host ahead of time and make sure that they have a big pot for you to warm up your soup.

It might be easier to just leave your soup in a big pot with a cover, bring that whole pot over, heat the soup up, and then bring the pot home, and then you can even wash your own pot. Depending on how far you have to go, if you have a car or if you're taking the subway, these are all the things you have to factor in. In terms of bringing your own bowls, you know what I would bring? I would bring those coffee cups, those paper coffee cups. You know the paper ones? You can just get a big stack of them at the supermarket instead of bowls.

I don't know if it's a sipping soup, but it might be nice for people to hold the cups and sip as like an hors d'oeuvre or a little nosh before people sit down. Even if not, they're very easy to serve. They're easy to hand around to people, and then, yes, you can just compost them at the end.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Marie, who is calling in. Hi, Marie.

Marie: Hi. First of all, thank you for the gravy tip. I've already made my stock from the neck and the giblets, and I'm just going to make the gravy. Okay. I am making a corn soufflé, and I am wondering, can I mix that up today, stick it in the refrigerator overnight, and bake it tomorrow, or would that not be a good idea? If not, can I bake it today and reheat it briefly in the oven tomorrow?

Alison Stewart: Corn soufflé. What do you say?

Melissa Clark: Okay, so let me ask you about the recipe. Does it have egg whites that are separate and beaten until stiff and folded into the mixture?

Marie: No.

Melissa Clark: Okay, so that means that it's probably the kind of thing that you actually can make ahead. I think it's going to be safer to bake it off today and then heat it up tomorrow because I'm worried that if you make the batter, we're not going to get the puffiness. Now, any kind of soufflé is not going to be nearly as puffy unless you're serving it straight from the oven. Just know that it's going to be browned, probably, and beautiful, but it may not be puffy, but that's okay. It's still going to taste great.

I would bake it today, bring it tomorrow, and then I like to heat things up while the turkey is resting. You have a good half an hour to 45 minutes while the turkey rests, and then you have to carve it. That is empty oven time, and that's when I heat everything up.

Alison Stewart: Here's another question. Any tips to make risotto ahead?

Melissa Clark: Oh, risotto is hard to make ahead because no matter what you do, the second that it cools down, it gets sticky. That's just the nature of risotto, and that is okay. What I do is when I make risotto ahead, I will finish it. You make it 75, let's say 80% done, right? You've added your liquid. It's almost, almost finished, but there's still a little bit of a bite to the rice and you haven't added all of your stock, but you are maybe five minutes from it being done.

That's when you take it off the heat, you put it in your fridge, the next day, you finish it with the remaining liquid, stock or wine or whatever you're using, and you finish cooking it. Then, that's going to give you the absolute creamiest, creamiest result. However, if you do make it entirely ahead and you put it in your fridge, you can loosen it up when you get there. Just bring a little bit of extra stock, heat it up, stir in your extra stock until it's a good temperature. The rice may get a little bit softer than the perfect risotto texture, but it's still going to be really, really good.

Either way, you can't lose. There's the perfect way, cook it 80% and finish it, or there's a cheater's way, know that your rice is going to be slightly soft, but still you'll have the flavors, and it will be great.

Alison Stewart: This is from Alison calling from Manhattan, meaning me.

Melissa Clark: [laughs] Hello, Alison, calling from Manhattan.

Alison Stewart: I'm making an apple pie. What makes a good apple pie?

Melissa Clark: Oh my gosh. I'm making an apple pie too. I was just thinking, "How am I going to make my apple pie this year?" I have a lot of prejudices about apple pies. I truly believe that I like to cook my apples ahead. How do you feel? Do you cook them ahead or do you do them raw?

Alison Stewart: I usually do them raw, but talk me into it. Talk me into cooking ahead.

Melissa Clark: Okay, because I find that when I do them raw, sometimes they really don't get as-- I like them really soft, and I like them almost like when you look at them, they should be translucent and just lightly coated in sugar. Not too much sugar, just enough sugary syrup. I find that I have more control if I cook them ahead. This is my plan, and again, take what you want and leave the rest. I'm going to peel and slice my apples. I'm going to cook them in apple cider and brown sugar, I think, and probably some lemon and lemon zest, a little bit of sugar, and I'm going to cook it down until they're just tender.

I'm going to put that in the fridge, and that's going to sit overnight. Then, tomorrow when I bake my pie, I probably will add tapioca, but you could add cornstarch or you could add flour, and you mix that in at the last minute, so whatever thickener, and then you bake off the pie. I'll do that first thing in the morning. In fact, my niece is already here. We're going to make pie dough together and we're going to put it in the fridge and I'm going to get that ready, I'm going to get my apples ready, and then bake it in the morning.

Alison Stewart: Sounds like-- [crosstalk]

Melissa Clark: What do you think? Does that work for you?

Alison Stewart: It works for me. We've got time for one more person. Amy in Brooklyn. Hi, Amy. You got about a minute.

Amy: Hi, Melissa. I have a question about blind baking. This is your sister and your niece's mother.

Melissa Clark: Yes, this is my sister calling. [laughs]

Amy: And your niece's mother, so thanks for having her over. Okay, so you always suggest that when you blind bake, you weight it down with pie weights or pennies or whatever. I've had success just poking it with a fork so it's got a bunch of holes in it. What's the advantage of your technique over that?

Melissa Clark: Well, okay, so if you just poke it with a bunch of holes, it is going to puff up. It's going to puff up less than if you don't poke it at all, but what tends to happen, and it really depends on your pie dough recipe, is that the sides of the crust kind of slump in. By putting the foil and putting the weights, it's not just about keeping the bottom flat, but it's about keeping the sides of the pie dough from slipping down into the crust. However, this is really important. If you have a technique that works for you, just use that technique. Just because I do it one way doesn't mean it's the only way to do it, so do what works.

Alison Stewart: All right. You've got 30 seconds. How many minutes per hour do you suggest cooking a turkey?

Melissa Clark: Oh my gosh.

Alison Stewart: 20 minutes a pound?

Melissa Clark: You know what? I don't know. Honestly, I just throw it in there and then I keep checking it. I'll have to look at my charts. Alison, you tricked me on this one. I don't know the answer off the top of my head, but we have a great chart at nytcooking.com. You can look it up anywhere on the internet, but make sure to take your turkey out of the oven before it reaches 165 because there will be residual heat and it will carry over. Take it out at 160 or 162.

Alison Stewart: Happy Thanksgiving, by the way.

Melissa Clark: What?

Alison Stewart: Happy Thanksgiving.

Melissa Clark: Happy Thanksgiving to you. Happy Thanksgiving to all of your listeners. Have a fantastic day tomorrow.