Even *ASH* loved my turkey the first time he tried it.

If you are in America, and are related to or close friends with an American, chances are that you are going to eat some turkey next week, on Thanksgiving if not also for a week afterwards.  For some, the big bird on the table is a more welcome guest than any of the people sitting around it….a feast-centerpiece bringing louder cheers than football, and more anticipation than the unbuttoning of pants.  For others, it is a begrudged nod to tradition, and a resigned battle between the desire to not waste several pounds of food, and the desire to not have to eat the stuff again for another year.

I cannot promise you that after trying my turkey, you will understand why some people spend $25 to walk into a RenFest just to spend even more money to get their hands on a turkey leg to go with the mug of beer that would be 4 times cheaper anywhere else.  I can honestly tell you, however, that several people who were not just ambivalent towards turkey, but outright didn’t like it, changed their minds drastically after eating one that I made.

• Do all the usual stuff to prepare your turkey. Make sure it’s not frozen.  Remove all the schtuff inside.  Wash it out.  Dry it off gently.  Salt the cavity.
• Stick the baking dish/pan/foil basin onto a cookie sheet before putting the turkey into it.  That makes it easier to move later.
• Make a giant bowl of the following glaze-thick sauce, mixed to taste:
• BBQ sauce (depending on your preference in BBQ sauce, you might need more or less of other ingredients to balance the sweetness and spiciness)
• 100% pure maple syrup
• cinnamon
• brown sugar
• black pepper
• lemon juice
• Pour about 1/4 of the sauce into a smaller bowl.  Add lemon juice until it is marinade-thin.
• Split the remaining sauce into two bowls, one a bit larger than the other.
• To the smaller of them, add a substantial amount of your preference in “leafy” spices (basil, thyme, rosemary, oregano, savory, marjoram, etc.).  The other, leave as-is.
• I call this part “Molesting The Turkey” because, as effective a technique as it is, it just looks wrong– using hands lacking sharp bits sticking out of rings, carefully start at one end of the turkey and slide said hand or hands between the meat of the bird and the skin, loosening it as you go.  The goal is to end up turning the bird all the way around, and having almost all of the skin separated from the meat, except at a few points at either end, and partway down each wing and drumstick.  You want to do this, ideally, without creating any major rips or tears.
• Doing this serves two purposes. One is that fat is no longer trapped in pockets of skin, and some of it dribbles out as the bird cooks.  You get a less greasy bird that way.  The other reason is that it is going to allow you to more than make up for the lost moisture that comes with the grease.  But first…
• Arrange your bird breast-side-up.  Stick your hand in the bowl of non-extra-seasoned sauce.  Stick your hand between meat and skin.  Repeat, rotating bird until at the end you’re working with the breast-side-down, until about half of that particular version of sauce has been used up in the process of being slathered all over between skin and meat.  Put the rest aside for a moment.
• Bring over your bowl of marinade, and a flavor injector.  Those things are like giant hypodermic needles for cooking, and they are a very underrated tool.  Unfortunately, I’ve yet to see a difference between $3 and $15 models when it comes to still working well for a second year.  In any event, you’re going to fill that sucker up with marinade, and inject it into the meat.  You’re going to keep doing that until you’ve used up the marinade, pushing the needle into all the different areas and depths of meat you can think of.  You’ll see the meat plumping as the tissues are flooded with marinade.  Do not worry about the small holes you’re punching through the skin — those will be sealed.
• Once you’re done injecting all of the marinade, use the remaining non-extra-seasoned sauce to coat the outside of the skin, all over the bird.  The sugars and cinnamon in the sauce will caramelize while cooking, sealing almost all of the flavors and moisture within and throughout the meat.
• Check that in your ministrations to the bird, at the end it is breast-side-down in its cooking pan.  At this point if you are concerned with cooking bread chunks, vegetables or whathaveyou in the drippings in the bottom of the pan, and/or making stuffing inside the bird itself, I suppose you can do so.  Those aren’t things my family likes, so this recipe isn’t concerned with them.
• Create a foil tent over the pan, and then stick the turkey into the oven to cook, as per bird-specific instructions
• Approximately an hour before the estimated cooking time is complete, pop out the bird, remove the foil tent, and brush the seasoning-added sauce all over the skin in a second layer that won’t have time to do more than crust.  When you put the bird back into the oven to complete its cooking, have the breast-side up, and rotate the bird so that a different end is pointing into the oven.  Leave the foil off.

The result of all this is a turkey in which practically every scrap of meat is moist and flavorful, and the skin is crisp and potently delicious without being greasy.  One year, I got the bird so tender that it was nearly falling off the bones like shredded crock-pot pork.  And, for the record, the flavoring of the meat isn’t so strong that you can’t still use the leftovers in different ways, to add variety….you just might not bother to.