Martha Stewart’s first Thanksgiving turkey was a disaster

Fifty years ago, Martha Stewart completely burned the first Thanksgiving turkey she ever cooked for her family. In an exclusive tell-all with The Daily Mail, Stewart revealed the disaster that almost ruined her entire Thanksgiving and her first as a newlywed.

Stewart purchased a 30-pound turkey at a local turkey farm (because where else would Martha get her turkey? A grocery store? Dream on!) and put it in the oven at 3 a.m. on Thanksgiving day so it could be enjoyed by her family by 1 p.m. as is their family tradition.

Understandably Stewart went back to sleep, assuming the turkey would cook and when she woke up that it would be nearly done. However, nothing went according to plan and when she woke up she recalled the house being full of black smoke. “My fateful mistake?” she admitted, “I preheated the oven to 500 degrees, then forgot to turn it down to 325.”

“I started to cry while we drove back to the turkey farm, where luckily one lone 30-pound turkey lay partially frozen in the walk-in freezer, a customer’s forgotten order. I grabbed it, rushed home, and placed it under running water to thaw it,” Stewart remembered.

The kitchen goddess, TV host, and cookbook author’s guests did not end up eating until 7 p.m., a full six hours later than originally planned. But when they did, “the turkey emerged glistening and golden, cooked to perfection,” she said.

If you ever find yourself with a turkey diaster like Martha and keep calm and call Butterball’s turkey hotline where they can give you answers to the most-asked turkey and side questions.