Live Culinary Q&A Tonight at 5pm PST

Hi Matt,

Glad you found my answer helpful. To simplify, always be in learning mode, but your gut will be your guide. Just be yourself and you will always be successful because you will naturally attract your own niche clientele. You can't make everyone happy all the time, but if you can become comfortable within your own skin and style, even though your style will always be evolving, your core customers will evolve with you and love you for it.

Never forget that bottom line, this is the service industry. Your job is to serve your customers, make them happy, and help create a memorable experience. Make it all about them, and it will be hard to go wrong.

Don't have one scheduled yet, but I'd like to do one every other week.

Yes, you should be able to join. What I'll do is set up a specific circle for people who want to ask questions live. I post more on this when I schedule the next live Q&A.

I just got a question via e-mail and thought I'd post it here as well since other people my be wondering the same thing. The questions was:

"I was watching your podcast on Thanksgiving.  I just called the butcher, and he is going to break down my turkey.  I'll be using the convection setting  (or not) depending on what you say.  So how low a temp and for how long do I cook the dark meat?  And how high a temp and for how long do I cook the breast?"

-- Sherry

Roast the breast at 425F with the convection fan on until the breast reaches an internal temperature of 155F (about 1-2 hours depending on the size of the breast). For the legs, either slow roast them at 325F until they have an internal temperature of 160F (should take about 3-5 hours depending on size), or you can confit them using this process: http://www.stellaculinary.com/podcasts/video/hcc-1-duck-confit

The salting step isn't really necessary and instead of duck fat, you can use grape seed oil. This allows you to slow cook the legs a few days ahead of time and then the day of all you need to do is remove them from the fat and crisp them in the oven. So if you confit your legs first, you can actually roast them alongside the breasts in your oven, just long enough to crisp the skin and heat them through.

@ PorkButter,

Just uploaded an MP3 version of this video. Good suggestion. It will be made available in iTunes shortly. Here's the direct link: http://stellaculinary.net/audio/culinary-q-and-a/Live-QNA-Thanksgiving.mp3

Your family will thank you for it. Bottom line, its all about flavor, and you can still present a broken down turkey nicely.

I prefer boneless, skin on and brined for 24 hours before cooking.