Some people love to entertain. Others view it as the grimmest of tasks -- the social equivalent of filling out an organ donor card. Depending on which view you subscribe to, I am either the most deluded of creatures or the happiest, because I enjoy having people over and cooking for them. My parents entertained frequently and well when I was growing up, and I guess I come by this predilection through their influence. I was unable to indulge it, however, until I had my own place -- probably the most basic of essentials for embarking on the fevered life of the inveterate party-giver.

Shortly after I moved into my first post-college apartment, I was possessed with a desire to entertain my friends, many of whom were still living in college dormitory rooms with cheerless views and bad heating. As I had taken my apartment in the fall, I thought that a holiday party would be fitting. I would have over a month to plan, and the idea of having my first real dinner party during the year's most festive time appealed to me.

In keeping with the spirit of the party, I decided to serve a turkey. There would be side dishes, too, and drinks and some extravagant dessert, but the turkey is what will remain forever fixed in my mind. It was the first turkey I had ever attempted to cook on my own. My mother assured me that turkeys were the easiest things in the world to cook, and that people were only put off by them because of their size. Because my mother is a fine cook and because she is, well, my mother, I took her advice.

I began to shop for the party a week in advance. As I wandered through the grocery store like a lamb to the slaughter, I saw that only fresh turkeys were available. I had a vague memory of having heard from someone I trusted that you should cook a fresh turkey within twenty-four hours of buying it. Since several days yawned before me, I opted to wait and buy my turkey the very day of the party.

The party morning dawned crisp and bright. I set out for the grocery store in the afternoon with a song in my heart. I rounded the bend to the meat section, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a Siberian expanse of frozen turkeys. Dread filled my heart as I read the defrosting directions on the packaging. I was lost! My menu would consist of a few lonely side dishes and some obscene dessert, lolling like a hussy on the barren table! My reputation as a hostess would be dashed to pieces before I had even established it! Numb, I picked up a turkey anyway and walked to the check-out line as to the gallows.

This bird was frozen through. Hope and youthful enthusiasm not yet completely deadened, I poked it a few times in the car on my way home, hoping to find some give beneath my fingers. When I got home, I re-read the directions for thawing. Even the erroneously named "quick thaw" method would take hours, and involved filling and draining the sink with cool water at strict half-hour intervals.

With nothing on my mind but the salvation of my party's main course, I decided that running water might be more efficient at the job than simply allowing the turkey to wallow in a sink bath. I was fortunate enough to live in an building with terrific water pressure, so I put the turkey into the shower and turned on the water -- warm, not cool, thereby encouraging the breeding of salmonella but assuredly saving my party.

This plan felt more active to me than the packaging's cautious recommendations, but it was not enough to make a noticeable difference in the turkey's texture. When I prodded it after about twenty minutes, it was still roughly the consistency of a slab of granite. There was only one course of action left to me, and I took it. I turned the water up to a comfortable bathing temperature, and the bird and I took a shower together -- it in its plastic cloak, and I in shorts and a T-shirt. I had no pride; I had a dinner party staring me in the face, and I was hell-bent on serving that turkey.

I cradled it in my arms, rolling it back and forth, letting the water pound each side. About a million hours later, there seemed to be a substantial softening in the bird's texture. I rinsed it one last time, laid it on the bath mat and proceeded to finish my toilette.

My next step was to call a local fish and meat market to ask for advice on how to cook the bird at lightning speed (I did not, at the time, own a microwave). I babbled to the man who answered the telephone that I didn't have the four hours the package dictated. He said, "You got any tin foil there?"

"Somewhere around here."

"Crank the oven on up to 500^o, wrap the bird in loose foil and roast the hell out of it for a couple of hours." He then told me to remove the foil for the last half hour of cooking time to allow the turkey to brown, and let me go only after a dire warning about undercooked meat and poisoned dinner guests.

I am happy to say that this kind gentleman's advice worked, and that my guests and I feasted on the turkey by candlelight that evening. No one called me up the next day complaining of stomach pains, but it was a long time before I cooked another turkey.

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