Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. I love the changing leaves, the crisp weather and all the food. Growing up, my family’s feast rotated between my grandparents’ houses and ours; it was a pretty cool time to explore their towns and spend some quality family time. During my university years, Thanksgiving (celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada) marked the first trip home after the start of the fall semester and a fun time to hang out with high school friends and take advantage of up to four turkey dinners. Once I hit university, I also started to celebrate U.S. Thanksgiving, especially partaking in the Thursday and Friday afternoon football-viewing.

This year marks our first in the U.S. and I’m excited to celebrate Thanksgiving with the locals. We’ve been invited to participate in a traditional U.S. Thanksgiving (turkey, all the fixin’s, football) with our friends Julia and Ship (a foodie who doubles as my main man at NC State News Services) and their kids.

Thanksgiving dinner does come with some food safety risks. Trying to pull off multiple dishes; thawing, preparing and cooking a 20lb+ bird; and, putting it all in the fridge for leftovers makes for a complicated day.

To help out with some tips on how to avoid foodborne illness at Thanksgiving and during the holiday season, we’ve pulled together this week’s food safety infosheet, focusing on turkey, downloadable here.