I came across an Asian woman and her husband hovering over the frozen turkey freezer sorting through the 20lbs and over turkeys. There weren't any turkeys smaller for the cheap price. You could get one of those Butterball ones but for $1.59 a pound, I'd rather save myself $20 and get a .59 cent a pound turkey and freeze the excess.

She and her husband looked puzzled. She said to him,"Turkey is turkey. That one too expensive." I smiled and said, "Yeah, pretty much once it's frozen, it is all the same. It's not worth the extra price." She elbowed him in the ribs, as if to say,"See? I told you so." Then she commented about how big it was and asked me about thawing it.

Now, I'm not a Thanksgiving guru in the typical sense; I only do what I saw my mother do. My mother wouldn't let me cook turkey at Thanksgiving because she liked to cook and we were to stay the hell out of her kitchen, thanks. I told the woman at the freezer,"For a turkey that big, just leave it in the sink." "Not in the fridge?," she asked hopefully. "No, it's a 20lb bird and it won't be ready. Tomorrow night you should check the inside and if it's still frozen, stick in it in warm water. If you wake up with it still frozen, just don't stuff it. "

As queen of the still frozen turkey that baked all day, I know these things.

The woman smiled and thanked me and we parted ways.

I went to look for a pan. I decided a long time ago that scrubbing a turkey pan was my least favorite thing to do in the world, so I have given up on owning a turkey pot for something aluminum I can wastefully chuck in the trash and ignore. Recycle, reschmycle.

At first I could only find just a plain flimsy aluminum pan and was totally bummed. Oh, the turkey juice I've sloshed on the floor in front of my oven in just such a pan! I was looking (in all the wrong places) for one of those ones with the big wire handles that kind of make me think,"Now, that there's one studly MANLY pan." That's a pan I don't spill precious turkey broth all over the floor with. I mean, Gravy is golden. Juicing my floor is not only bad manners, but it's really slippery, too.

Figuring, I was just too damned late in the game after finding only 20 lb turkeys in the freezer and I wasn't going to get a turkey pan with handles this year, low and behold, I found my pan...

...surrounded by Middle Eastern women with perplexion waxing valiantly on their brow,"Which one should we use?," they asked each other shrugging. Again, I felt my vast experience as a reborn Thanksgiving guru come out of my mouth. "The one with handles," I blurted out. They looked at me as if I were to be worshipped. "It's sturdier and you don't lose turkey juice every where like you do in those other ones. It's easier to lift that big turkey out of the oven with all the juice with the one with handles." They touched my wrist and thanked me profusely and I walked away on my turkey guru cloud of epiphany.

I've had to do turkey the hard way. I've spent hours pouring over Betty Crocker. I don't have a damned thermometer and frankly those ones that come with the turkeys usually stick for me. I became a turkey guru the old-fashioned way: overcooking, making messes, undercooking and generally wrecking the meal where possible.

Now stuffing is another matter. My mother's stuffing had been the only stuffing I'd ever known aside from Stove Top and she always prided herself on making it from scratch. However, I distinctly remember Thanksgiving at a gay couple's house in San Francisco around 1985, when I discovered that my mother's stuffing rather sucked. They had the most amazing stuffing buffet; there was a variety of chestnuts, sausages, cornbread, croutons, dried fruit, etc. spread through several different bowls of stuffing. It sparked my imagination. The next year, I bought a bag of croutons and I used traditional fare, but I also used bacon, walnuts, raisins and even tofu. My stuffing was amazing.

I impressed people. No one knew they were eating tofu. It was an experimental and crucial turning point for me in developing my skills as a cook.

My stuffing is unequaled in it's odd ingredients and its quintessential goodness. The epitome of my stuffing greatness was reached when my parents came out for Easter and I made turkey and stuffing. My father had thirds. My mom couldn't stop talking about it.

I am the Thanksgiving guru.

And now, for the most celebrated portion of our program: the cranberry sauce.

Last year, I invented a recipe.

Boil up raw cranberries. Puree them. Let cool. Follow the directions on the bag or add the equivalent amount of equal in lieu of sugar, if you're diabetic and squeeze in the juice of a lime or two along with a little rind. Mix again. Eat.

My husband has never ever liked cranberry sauce of any kind and feels it's the scourge of any Thanksgiving dinner. Last year, I made that for our turkey dinner and he's been converted.

Guru, I tell you. Guru.

And no entry would be complete without mention of something guilt-inducing.

I love Thanksgiving for the traditions that came out of my family, but was rather heart-broken to discover that most Native Americans think that the holiday is a lot of salt in the wound.

For me it's a time to count my blessings. I include my family, my husband and my kids among those. I thank God for my relative health in the face of diabetes.

I also am thankful that we have a holiday such as this to look back at the history of our country and remember the sins of our ancestors. I'm distantly related to those illbred Pilgrims on my paternal grandfather's mother's side. Specifically, Thanksgiving reminds us not to reiterate those horrible big mistakes, like, oh, I dunno, xenocide.