Follow four experts at the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line as they prepare for their biggest day.
Four experts from the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line. Clockwise, from top left: Karen Wilcher, Charla Draper, Phyllis Kramer and Javier Reyes.CC Allen/DailyExpertNews
Thanksgiving has many heroes, but the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line may be the largest gathering of all in one office space.
Each year, from early November to Christmas Day, about 50 holiday veterans man the phones, answering thousands of cooking questions – and reassuring anxious chefs dealing with all levels of kitchen problems.
“These aren't just simple questions,” says Phyllis Kramer, an expert with more than 20 years of experience. “Some of these are quite serious questions about food safety.”
In October 2023, six weeks before the biggest calling day—Thanksgiving—I led a camera crew to the hotline's headquarters in Naperville, Illinois, to see what had changed since 2019, when DailyExpertNews wrote about it.
By means of Cooking in the DailyExpertNews
We knew some of the basics: that the Butterball Talk-Line has been a resource center since 1981, a place where people can call for questions and emergencies about Turkey; that the experts use their professional culinary backgrounds to coach home chefs for four to seven hours a day. But we didn't know who these people are and why they're giving up their Thanksgiving — even though they're being compensated — and the weeks surrounding it to help people solve problems when Internet searches fail.
By following four of the experts over the course of a month, we observed people who are not only a beacon of hope for frantic chefs, but also experience a fullness of life by extending kindness to strangers.
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