Holiday Cooking Hotlines

Does the idea of having to cook a Holiday meal for your closest friends and relatives make you break into a cold sweat? It shouldn't, since many of the largest and best known food companies have established Holiday cooking hotlines, to answer all of your culinary questions. So take a deep breath and relax, because there are Holiday cooking hotlines available to cover everything from turkeys to baking to leftovers. Also, although some hotlines are only seasonal, many are year round. So it's Thanksgiving morning and you're getting global conference call to put the turkey in the oven, when you suddenly realize - you forgot to defrost it! Can Thanksgiving be saved? Of course, give Butterball or Shady Brooks Farm a call. You've decided to surprise everyone by baking Grandma's secret cookie recipe, and realize you don't have real unsalted butter, only margarine (a mostly vegetable oil blend). Can/should you substitute? Land o Lakes or Betty Crocker can handle that one for you. You want to make your own pie crusts, and have found 10 different recipes online all claiming to be the lightest and flakiest. How to choose? The Crisco pie hotline or the King Arthur Flour baker's line can shed some light on the subject. It's the day after the Holiday, and you still have 5 lbs of turkey. Is there anything else you can do with it besides turkey sandwiches? Campbell's Soup has a hotline devoted entirely to holiday leftovers. Come to think of it, the idea of cooking hotlines makes perfect sense, since the company who's product you've purchased wants to make sure that you are totally satisfied with their product, so you'll continue to buy it (and possibly even recommend it to your friends and family). So dust off that old family cookbook, put together your shopping list and call the relatives, because no matter what happens you're only a phone call away from the expert advice you need to fix any situation.