Turkey's ready - but is it

Cooking a Thanksgiving turkey shouldn't take any more than 20 minutes, according to some of Tabitha Bradbury's kindergartners at St. Jude Thaddeus School.

If 20 minutes is more time than one has, there is always little Clara's recipe, which only calls for three minutes of oven time.

It's Thanksgiving once again and Bradbury wanted to make sure the nine children in her class knew how to prepare a turkey, the keynote dish at any Thanksgiving dinner.

"If I'm coming over for Thanksgiving dinner, how would you cook dinner for me? What would you do first?" Bradbury asked, calling each child to the back of the room one by one.

All of Bradbury's tots knew there could be no turkey dinner until there was a turkey. And unlike Bradbury's kids from last year, this year's group would not be doing any hunting, killing or plucking. This was a more cultured group. They were getting their turkeys from Walmart, or the general grocery store.

This gang was also wiser to the inner workings of turkey preparing. No one would be putting their turkey in the toaster or microwave, something Bradbury heard from some of her first-period students.

The kids had just celebrated a classmate's birthday and Colwyn, like Clara, still had chocolate smudges on his face. But that was the least of his concerns. He had a turkey to prepare, and he knew there was more to it than simply sticking it in the oven.

The turkey would first need "ingredients," he said shyly, almost whispering. Olivia was more specific.

"I would put salt on it," she said. Then she backtracked, making sure to wash the holiday bird before salting it.

Once the ingredient-filled, salted turkey from Walmart was in the oven, Brycen said there would be no cooking until the knob on the oven was turned on. But once the oven was hot and ready, it was anybody's guess as to how long the turkey should stay in it.

At three hours, Avery's turkey would probably be safest to eat.

Now that the turkey was out of the oven, it would have to be cooled off. The kids knew that a fresh-cooked bird was dangerous to eat.

There was one more thing to do before digging in. Not having agreed since concluding that there was no turkey cooking without a turkey, the children of St. Jude unanimously established there would be no eating until prayers were said.

Turkey has been cooked and cooled off, family has been invited and prayers have been said. It was time to eat turkey. Some of the kids had preferences. Carey said she was a drumstick kind of gal. Cowlyn wasn't nearly as specific. He preferred to eat "the inside and the outside" of the turkey.