Gobble Up These Fine Turkey Tips

It’s been three whole days since Halloween, and you haven’t started thinking about Thanksgiving dinner yet?

Take heart. A trio of toll-free telephone hotlines opened this week to help you out:

* Butterball’s Turkey Talk-Line offers personal advice from professionally trained experts. Each caller this year will receive a free 2000 calendar with turkey tips and recipes. And for $3.50, you can order a five-minute video, “Preparing a Picture-Perfect Butterball Turkey.”

Hotline help is available at (800) 323-4848 on weekdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. through Nov. 24. Hours will be 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. the weekend before Thanksgiving, and 4 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thanksgiving Day. Or, visit www.butterball.com.

* The Reynolds Turkey Tips Line provides prerecorded defrosting and roasting instructions, as well as free recipe brochures. Call (800) 745-4000, or visit www.reynoldskitchens.com.

* On a sweeter note, the Land O’Lakes Holiday Bakeline serves up baking advice and recipes seven days a week from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. at (800) 782-9606. There’s also a Web site, www.landolakes.com; through next Wednesday, visitors can enter a contest to win baking supplies.

Market update

The end of October marked the end of the first season for the New Farmers’ Market in Spokane. The growers’ group has announced they’ll be back next spring at the same location, the First Covenant Church parking lot at Second and Division.

The original Spokane MarketPlace will continue to offer greenhouse-grown cucumbers, tomatoes, green beans and sprouts on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Ruby and Desmet. Look for Friday hours to be added soon.

Tales of the bazaar

November means it must be time for another Scandinavian Bazaar at Central Lutheran Church, 512 S. Bernard.

This year’s event, Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., again features fresh baked goods, cookies and candy. There’s a coffee hour with homemade desserts from 9 to 11 a.m., followed by lunch until 1:30 p.m. Proceeds benefit charity; for more information, call 624-9233.

Cook and dagger

Psst: The CIA is coming to town.

Actually, it’s the Culinary Institute of America, the prestigious New York cooking school, which will have a representative at the Inland Northwest National College Fair next Monday and Tuesday at the Ag Trade Center.

A reception open to anyone interested in the school is scheduled Tuesday at 4 p.m. at Hill’s Someplace Else, 518 W. Sprague; to reserve a spot, call (800) 285-4627 by Monday.