I am all in again.
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Luke's Diner with Scott Patterson, an iHeartRadio podcast. Hey everybody, Scott Patterson, I Am all in Podcast, want eleven productions. iHeartRadio Media. iHeart Podcast. We're doing a special happy Thanksgiving episode for you with somebody very interesting guest we have this week. She is Nicole Johnson. She's the director of the Butterball Turkey talk Line and we're doing a special episode of Luke's Diner with her. We're celebrating Thanksgiving, obviously,
and we think Nicole is the perfect perfect guest. There's more, so much more to your bio. But why there's so many questions that we want to ask you, So let's just get into it. Nicole, welcome, Hello, Thank you.
Thank you you having us. Oh we're good, Scott. We're busy today. We're getting ready for our busiest week, so fantastic.
Well, thanks for taking the time. So before we get into.
The meat of it, little Turkey chuck between us Turkey folks, tell me about what it means to be the director of the Butterball Turkey talk Line.
Well, thanks for asking. The talk line itself started in nineteen eighty one, so forty four years, the talk line's been up and going. I joined the talk line in two thousand and one and back then twenty plus years ago. To join the talk line, it was a little bit different of an interview process. We didn't have to advertise for it. It was a word of mouth referral. So one of my graduate instructors at the time, she also worked on the talk line and thought you'd be a verat fit.
It's a seasonal position. You know, you're empathetic, you have a great food background. Let me give you the referral. So she did and I joined back in two thousand and one. It's an amazing job. It is seasonal for our team. We have over fifty men and women answering consumers questions. You know, there's many ways to reach us. But I'm year round leading the team in the in the director position. So I truly love my job.
It's mainly people calling in to get instructions about how to prep their turkeys and what kind of turkey to buy, and you got it, got twenty coming over. How many should how big a turkey should I have? Should I have multiples? And then what do I do with this thing? This suction thing in how do I work? So you're doing all the basic stuff right and telling people how to have a better Thanksgiving experience, right, Okay.
Do get a lot of questions like that?
Yes, we do, because I don't know either. I mean, let me ask you this. Do people carve with a carving knife more to the because we have those electric knives? Yes, so it's more carving knives now, not so much the electric saws that you saw the turkey up with.
I think it's I think it's personal preference, and I think it's family tradition. I'm nearing my fifties and my dad because I work every Thanksgiving, my folks will host my four little butterballs, my four kiddos, and they always kind of tease my dad a little bit because he comes down with this. He takes it out once a year. And yeah, you're right, it's at electric carver and that's his personal preference, right, kind of family tradition. He's always done.
It that way.
But a lot of folks will ask for instructions, you know, to carve their turkey with with the knife. We have a couple tips and tricks for that. So you're right, we get questions. You know, how should I go about carving? Should I stuff my turkey? Should I not stuff it? And that's where we really like tell people, how did what's your family tradition? Right? How did how did you grow up? Because we have advice for quite a bit, quite a bit of waste.
I would like to make a turkey statement. Yeah, I'm on the side, and I will always advocate for stuffing the turkey. The quality and the flavor.
It's phenomenal. So did you grow up like that?
My mom was a turkey stuffer? Ditto likewise, I mean she didn't mester, she didn't play. Yeah, yeah, she's and it was delicious.
Yeah.
And it's amazing how much stuffing she could pack in there. It's like it just kept coming out, you know what I mean. I let's start with the basics. How do you, Nicole? How do you choose a turkey?
Well, it depends on if I am looking to fall my frozen turkey. You know that's our number one question here at the Butterball Turkey Talk Line. How do I thaw my turkey?
Right?
And so you want to remember it takes twenty four hours for every four pounds of turkey meat to thaw on your fridge. So if you do the math, if you have a twenty four pound turkey, that's a good six days to thaw on the fridge. You can also use a cold water back method, So if I want to thaw the turkey, I'll use that method. But you know, I'm working some pretty long hours right now, so I
may choose something that doesn't require thawing. We have some turkeys that are they're just that they're just cooked and frozen. It's about convenience, which is, you know, oftentimes what I need with my four kiddos. Maybe I want to do a turkey breath, Maybe I want to do ground turkey. Kind of just depends on what, you know, what my work schedule looks like, but they're all good options.
How do people figure out what sized turkey they need? Is there a like a poundage for per person or per two people? How does what's what's the metric there?
Yeah, we usually tell folks a pounds and a half to two pounds per person, So you know, your family of five or six, you're looking ten to twelve pounds turkey. If you want to have leftovers, definitely go more towards that two pound range and you can store your leftovers in the refrigerator for three days and then in the freezer for up to three months.
I don't know if there's a better lunch the next day, the next to two days, because it's that weekend, right, because if Thanksgiving falls on Thursday or Friday, right now, you got all weekend to watch football? Yes, just and just grind on on turkey sandwiches with stuffing. Yes, there's there's no better lunches.
Turkey nachos, what yes? What? Yes? And my kids love that because they can just add their own toppings, right. Kids want to do that, They kind of want to make it their own. Those are delicious, right. So, if you guys have shreded turkey leftover, throw it in a plastic baggie and try it. It's pretty good.
Let check it out. What's the best way to tell if the turkey is done ready to go?
The safest way we're all about food safety year at the top, is to use a meat thermometer to check for done.
This.
You don't want to overcook the turkey, but you definitely don't want to undercook it either, Right, So it's going to register one seventy in the thigh and one seventy in the breast for best eating quality. But for folks like us who like the stuff and carry on our mom's tradition, you can take that meat thermometer, insert it right in the center of the stuffing, and when it registers one sixty five, your turkey's done.
Huh fantastic?
All right?
So what is the number one turkey mistake people will make every Thanksgiving?
Well, As a working mom and having four kids and a lot of different schedules, I think people need to plan. You know, ideally, I'm a little bit of a paper and pen girl myself. But regardless if it's paper and pen or you know, you keep your list on your phone, try to plan in advance. Right, even though I have cooked a lot of turkeys, I will go ahead and
list out everything that I'll need in advance. I'm also all about convenience too, so I may opt for a throwaway disposable pan saves it a little bit of a cleanup saves with a lot of the cleanup, Or if you want to use an oven cooking bag, we can give you instructions for that. It's more of a moistic method. It's it's tender, juicy, delicious and all of the mass is contained right in that in that bag. A lot of folks will want to put their own stamp, I
guess on there, you know, Thanksgiving turkey. So they're very grateful when they call and we have instructions. Yet we have the traditional oven, that tried and true method, but maybe they want to try outdoor grill. You know, we're here in Chicago, so it's weather permitting on Thanksgiving. Deep frying that's been popular since for years. It's been very popular. There's some safety, there's some safety things you want to remember, but it's a delicious turkey.
Deep deep frying a turkey is its actually a good method.
It's delicious, really, it really is. Have you ever prepared? Okay, So just from a food safety perspective, you do want to keep in mind that, you know, you want to have the right oil of choice because of that higher smoke point that you need. Peanut oil is a great option you want, you know, you want to remind people to do it outside and their their fryer outside. Make sure that turkey is fully thawed, right. We don't want those ice crystals to to you know, spatter on that
hot oil. That's that's where you could have, you know, an issue. But it's delicious.
It's very good.
Usual, your fourteen pound turkey or less is the most ideal size for that fryer. It's delicious.
So what's the largest turkey you can get?
Well, we do get a lot of phone calls usually twenty six to twenty eight pounds. That's a that's a pretty large sized turkey. It's it's yeah, it's a it's a good sized turkey. But if you're looking for a lot of yield of meat, what you can go ahead and do is purchase purchase two smaller turkeys. You can even cook them side by side in the oven as long as they fit side by side. And we can
give you instructions on that too. So some people might do that, or maybe they just want some more white meat, so we can tell them to get a bone in or a boneless breast. That's a great option.
All right.
Let's say somebody overcooks their turkey. Is there any way to save it?
Well, we're always thankful that if we get that phone call. Really it's not a food safety issue, right, you haven't undercooked it. Because we do have some of those conversations if you overcook it. You know, you may just want to use a we may talk through some gravy recipes it up, right, Yeah, and maybe what not to do next time. Right. We just kind of walked through it a little bit.
Try to help them as best we can, right, make them feel good. There's a little bit of helpe there with the grid. Yes, So what's the wildest or most humorous call that you've ever taken, like something like a screaming emergency or something or yes.
And some of our callers, some of our team rather they have ten years of almost forty years almost you know, the entire existence of the talk line itself, and we get those repeat callers who call and want to speak to those specific individuals every year. And sometimes it's you know, for turkey advice, or sometimes it's the creative ways. You know, we'll hear the people will fall and we've heard electric blanket. We've heard you know, countertop thawing, which is not ideal.
But those are some of the really nice calls that we get. Sometimes people call for for the turkey advice, but a lot of times some folks are lonely on Thanksgiving week too, so there's something to be said about And I just got done saying this to one of my colleagues. There's something to be said about that human connection and what we offer here at the talk line. When we talk to our cooks on the phone. You can get our information, yes, on email, chat, text, and
social media, and that's all great. You know, my kids love making text. That's very cool. But the phones, you know, they're really the hard of the talk line. We all work on Thanksgiving Day, we dedicate our Thanksgiving Day. We're doing eight, nine, maybe even ten hour shifts here on Thanksgiving. Yes, we're super busy. You know that there's always a way
to reach us. So we have a callback feature. You can enter your phone number and we'll call you back when it's your place in line, which is kind of nice. But then when we do call them back, they are so grateful oftentimes kind of surprise. I think that you know, we'll here, you're a real person on the other line, You're not.
Just a you know.
So yeah, and it feels pretty dark good to have that kind of job, right and and and hear that from from callers over the day.
Have you noticed any kind of regional differences in the kind of questions people ask like person from New York or person from the Midwest or South Dakota or Montana. They also get a different kind of question somebody from Florida or whatever.
I don't know if I necessarily notice like a regional difference, but you were mentioning earlier. If we get phone calls where people are kind of kind of in a panic, right, and those are the real cute ones. We'll be on speakerphone right out of the gate. And a lot of times, maybe it's you know, two siblings kind of bickering back and forth and and and they're calling us because we're going to determine, you know, one way or another, and like our word is is goal to them, which also
feels very impowers. Maybe it's a husband and wife and they're kind of going back and forth a little bit. We get over Thanksgiving break, before the kiddos get out of school, we get a lot of classrooms that we'll call and you hear the teacher okay, okay, she's on and and and we're talking to like a classroom full of kids. And I love those calls. I probably because I have, you know, four kiddos of my own, but those are really cute, very cute calls with all the with the classrooms.
All right, so you watched, uh the show the Thanksgiving episode deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving for thanks for Thanksgiving dinners one day? Yes, one days? How did we do? What? What's the verdict on each Turkey?
Well? I thought it was pretty cute that you had to toss the roles to her after the fact because she's thinking right that she that that was very cute. But it was very cute. And I thought much like them accommodating four different you know, gatherings or Thanksgivings. I feel like that's kind of what we do here at the talk line, kind of what you guys represent in your show, right, just trying to make everybody really as
happy and just kind of give them as memorable. I think of a Thanksgiving as we can.
Would you you wouldn't recommend people eating four different Thanksgiving dinners? I mean, I mean, that's that's a lot.
It is a holiday. You probably wouldn't do it every day. But if you can do it, why not?
Wow?
Why not?
I like your attitude?
All right?
All right? If Butterball Turkey talk Line existed in the Gilmore Girls universe, which character do you think you would call you most often.
Well, I have three boys and one daughter, and I watch that show and I see the bonding that that that the two of them have, and it instantly makes me think of my daughter.
She's fifteen.
She's an absolute sweetheart, but she's smart as a whip and she's stay on my toes right. So I think that I definitely relate to the show because of the bonding.
Of the two of them.
You know, it's such a wholesome show too, which I love. But it's fast paced too, and I love that, and my household is fast paced with my kiddos, And I thought, there it is so that I have. Yeah, that's a good that's my answer for that.
You know, you know who I think it would be. I think it would be Kirk. I think Kirk. I think Kirk would call you and you would say something like do you have a fire extinguisher in the house? You know that kind of a thing.
But I would stay calm, But I would stay calm.
Calm, rightly. I think Kirk would be calling you on on the on the half hour. Nicole Johnson, it was been a delight, good luck, just Thanksgiving, and keep doing what you do. Helping out people who don't have a clue what to do with the turkey, uh, and some that do and just need a little assistance.
All the best, Thank you, thank you very much.
You got it. And and she's listen, everybody, give Nicole a call. Okay, she can help you out. She knows her she knows when it comes to turkey and parenting. She knows her stuff, all right, so she can. She's kind of like a turkey therapist, a little bit right turkey social worker, kind of kind of a deal. She can make your day better, all right. And best fans on the planet, Thanks for all your downloads and cards and letters. Keeping coming please, we really really do appreciate it.
And remember where you lead, we will follow. Stay safe everybody.
Everybody, and don't forget.
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