An instant-read thermometer is the best gift for the cook who has everything. Here’s what some folks told Elizabeth Weiss of USA Today.

William Keene, senior epidemiologist at Oregon's Public Health Service, gives instant-read thermometers as wedding presents. "They save people's lives."

The thermometer also makes Keene's food taste a lot better. That's because after spending a long day talking to people who've gotten sick from eating undercooked food, he found he had a tendency to overcook everything. Food "would get all dried out." But when he used the thermometer he actually stopped when it was done, rather than overdone. Though don't forget to wash the tip with soapy water after you use it, "to avoid cross-contamination.”

Kathy Bernard of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Meat and Poultry Hotline gives them out as bridal shower presents. At the holidays they're especially useful when people pull out recipes they don't often make, like eggnog. "Since it contains raw eggs, if you're going to make it from scratch you start cooking the egg base, stirring it over low heat until the mixture reaches 160," to kill any possible salmonella.

Jack Bishop of America's Test Kitchen, a popular cooking show on PBS, said, "It's something you can be pretty sure most people don't own, or if they do own one, they don't own a very good one.”

And they're not just for meat, says Bishop. The old-fashioned method of knocking on the bottom of the loaf pan to see if the bread's done only works if you've spent enough years baking bread that you know what you're listening for. With a thermometer there's no guessing. Plain bread is done at between 200 and 210, a sweet loaf between 190 and 200.

And for cheesecake, a thermometer is the key to avoiding cracks across the top. "The magic temperature is 150," Bishop says

Old-fashioned meat thermometers rely on metal actually expanding and turning the temperature dial. Digital instant-read thermometers use electronics and are faster and generally more accurate. The instant-read digitals use slightly different technology than a regular digital thermometer, so be sure to look for ones that say they are instant-read.

Our favorite is the Comark PDT 300 (right, exactly as shown, about $30).

I started using my thermometer on homemade bread a couple of years ago; big improvement.

Roasting a frozen bird can produce a better turkey.

And many food safety types agree.

Elizabeth Weise of USA Today writes the technique involves a hot oven, an icy bird and six hours to hang out with your relatives.

While the technique turns out not to be new, it's gaining traction because of a Web publication outlining how to do it by Pete Snyder of the Hospitality Institute of Technology and Management, which does safety training for food companies.

"The breast is still moist and the dark meat is still tender," Snyder says from his office in St. Paul. It's also excellent for food safety "because you didn't drip that nasty turkey juice on everything in the refrigerator for four days."

Donald Schaffner, a food microbiologist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., says from a safety perspective Snyder's right. "A frozen turkey is going to spread less contamination around your kitchen than a thawed turkey."

Snyder tested the technique because "I had been one of those people that had woken up at 7:30 in the morning and the turkey was still frozen." But being a food-safety professional, he decided to throw in a few temperature-measuring thermocouplers.

He placed them at various points on multiple frozen turkeys as they roasted. What was happening in the oven, he found, was "the first half of the cooking period thaws the turkey and then the second half roasts it," he says.

His technique is simple:
Take one frozen turkey, 12 to 13 pounds.
Place a low wire rack on a cookie sheet with low sides.
Remove the plastic cover from the turkey.
Put the turkey on the rack.
Put it in a 325-degree oven.
Wait 4½ to five hours.
Eat.

Snyder recommends using a cookie sheet or another baking sheet with a low rim, not a high-sided roasting pan. "You want the hot oven air to evenly circulate all around the turkey," he says.

He also recommends putting the turkey on a rack on the pan so that the hot air can circulate underneath, as well.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's food-safety experts agree with Snyder. Kathy Bernard of USDA's Meat and Poultry Hotline says "you can cook a turkey from a frozen state, the only thing you need to know is that it takes one and a half times longer to cook" than a thawed bird.

The technique is well known to the folks on the Butterball Turkey Talk-line. They get "lots" of calls on the topic Thanksgiving morning, says Carol Miller. She has been answering frantic questions for 27 years out of the Naperville, Ill., office.

The ideal final temperatures for the turkey is 160 degrees at the breast and 185 for the legs. But Snyder doesn't think a thermometer is necessary because you can tell when the leg has reached 185 because "it will wiggle back and forth really easily" because the connective tissues will have begun to dissolve at that temperature, he says.

USDA isn't so keen on the "wigging the leg" method of testing for doneness. "You need to use your food thermometer, you need to make sure the turkey should register 165 in the innermost part of thigh and the thickest part of the breast," Bernard says.

Butterball's Miller says this is the time to canvass the neighborhood. "You really need a meat thermometer. If you don't have one, give a guest a call and see if they can bring one. Or go to a convenience store. Or knock on a neighbor's door."

The one area where Snyder and other turkey experts differ is on the matter of the neck and giblets, which in most commercially prepared turkeys will be placed in the neck and body cavity.

Snyder says that after about 2½ to three hours the turkey will have thawed enough that you can "carefully" pull them out of the warming bird to start to make stock. "You can leave them in, but then you don't have them for the gravy," he says.

Butterball's Miller disagrees. The bag they come is "designed to go through that heating process, so that's not a problem." Trying to remove a slippery bag tucked deep in a turkey straight out of a hot oven — especially when everyone's stressed about getting things done on time — just isn't necessary. "They're just as happy staying right where they are. That's our recommendation and we've been doing this for 30 years."

The one thing you can't do with a frozen turkey is deep fry it, because the frozen liquid can cause the oil to boil over, Snyder says. "That would be very, very dangerous."

 As a Canadian citizen with permanent U.S. residency living in Australia, I get confused.

Even with a language professor by my side, I can barely understand a damn word anyone says – especially the Canadians.

Fellow Queenslander Pat Dignam also appears confused when he writes in the Irish Times that food irradiation “is routine in some countries, including the U.S., so eating rare hamburgers there is safe.”

No. A small fraction of American ground beef is irradiated, and almost none of that is available at retail or food service.

Mr. Dignam is correct when he says, “During the butchering process, the surface of cuts of meat may become contaminated with bacteria, notably E. coli, from the intestines of the animal (regardless of the standards applied by the farmer and butcher). Cooking an intact piece of meat on the surface is sufficient to kill any such bacteria. However, when a piece of meat is minced, contamination on the surface can be spread to any part of the product. … Irish mince is not irradiated, so the process of cooking through is crucial. E. coli infection can be fatal, so anyone who wishes to eat rare or raw minced beef in Ireland should take note of these facts.”

Well said, except for the U.S. bit. And things get confusing when intact cuts like steaks are needle-tenderized.

The facts are ground beef in the U.S. needs to be cooked to 160F (71C) as verified by a tip-sensitive digital thermometer.

Stick it in.

 In what appears to be an ineffectual use of twitter akin to travel and weather updates from people who occasionally say something useful, safefood Queensland (that’s in Australia) posted 10 tips for chicken preparation ending with this nosestretcher.

“And finally Tip 1: Make sure that you never serve partially cooked chicken to anyone. Chicken is cooked when the juices run clear.”

Color is a lousy indicator of safety for any meat. This has been extensively referenced, and why Canadians and Americans tell people to use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer. The chicken leg with back attached (right, thanks Pete Snyder) has been cooked to a thermometer-verified and safe 165F. There may be a yuck factor, but it’s microbiologically safe.