As your hands are digging through the turkey cavity for that slippery gravy packet, you'll be able to ask Alexa for help without risking salmonella by picking up your phone.  There's help for pie bakers too.

If your family is anything like mine, asking relatives for Thanksgiving cooking advice can be a bit of a crapshoot.  Everyone seems to have a different opinion on how long to cook the turkey, and usually to settle the minor feud someone gets out a calculator to figure out exactly how many minutes the bird should be baked according to how much it weighs.  And then we bake it twenty minutes longer to be sure.

The Butterball Hotline will be running again to keep families at peace, and the Butterball skill will also be on Alexa which means we can get to the bottom of our turkey issues hands-free while keeping the raw turkey bacteria away from our smartphones.

Butterball Alexa Skill and Turkey Talk-Line

The Turkey Talk-Line - 800-288-8372 or 844-877-3456 for texts

To access the Butterball Alexa Skill, just say “Alexa, open Butterball…” or “Alexa, ask Butterball…”  Butterball experts also are answering questions through the holidays on Facebook and Twitter.

Foster Farms Helpline

1-800-255-7227

Foster Farms will have live phone support, from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. on weekdays from now through Dec. 4.

Crisco Pie Tips

Crisco has tips and troubleshooting advice on everything from handling pie dough to easy clean-up at Crisco.com.

Fleischmann's Yeast Baker's Hotline

800-777-4959

It's not just yeast-related questions, but they'll help you handle issues related to baking in general from 7 a.m.-2 p.m. weekdays, except holidays. They're also posting recipes at breadworld.com.

King Arthur Baker’s Hotline

855-371-2253

They won't answer on Thanksgiving Day, but if you're baking ahead of the holiday they'll have the hotline ready from 4 a.m.-6 p.m. daily through Dec. 31 (closed Nov. 28 and Dec. 25). Recipes are at kingarthurflour.com

Ocean Spray Consumer Help Line

800-662-3263

I can't think of one question about cranberries, but if you have one, fire up this hotline from 6 a.m.-3 p.m. weekdays, except for Thanksgiving Day.  They have recipes and holiday tips at oceanspray.com

A big stumper at Thanksgiving seems to be how to get that gooey sugary mixture in a pecan pie to be just the right consistency.  Well, that, and how to make a homemade pie crust in the first place.  It's good to know that this year we'll have plenty of help.

The best cooks always make it look so easy, but maybe they're sneaking in a call to the Butterball hotline.  Now, if only there were a hotline for help with all the leftovers...

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