Personally, when doing Friendsgiving or similar events I've solved the problem by cooking a duck instead. It's equally uncommon as turkey for nearly everyone th

Personally, when doing Friendsgiving or similar events I've solved the problem by cooking a duck instead. It's equally uncommon as turkey for nearly everyone that comes over. Before I had started doing it even I had never actually had a whole roasted duck. The grocery stores closest by me have started carrying less common poultry but it's usually incredibly marked up, but if I go down town to China Town the duck is still cheaper than turkey. For proper family Thanksgiving, my family kind of suffered through dry turkey for years. Not really realizing there was room for improvement. My extended family is huge so we always had atleast two turkeys, usually one done by grandma and one by the host. Some years back my dad found this new turkey cooking kit he wanted to try when we hosted. It came with a needle, marinade and a new contraption for cooking the turkey. The turkey was universally loved by the family and everyone felt bad for disliking my grandma's traditional one so much in comparison. The new device my dad had found was a turkey deep fryer. This was years before every single fire department around the country universally panned them and all the videos of people burning their houses down came out. But it is easily the best turkey I've ever had and if I'm ever cooking turkey for Thanksgiving will be the method I use. Family Thanksgiving have been on the smaller sides in recent year, but I plan to do as much research and buy the safest one if I ever get put in charge of making the turkey.