Things go wrong at Thanksgiving. Sam Sifton knows this because, for two years, he manned the Thanksgiving Help Line at the highly trafficked website of The New York Times. When birds got burned, when gravy separated, when pies settled: Sam Sifton was there. Thanksgiving comes out of his experience, but it also draws on the decades of holiday cooking Sifton has done for friends and family. It's a book that gives comfort and speaks with authority. It is a book for briners and those morally opposed to bringing, for people who have always dreamed of deep-frying their turkey, smoking their turkey, or roasting their turkey in parts. Need help setting the table properly? Choosing your wines and whiskies? Picking the perfect side dishes? Clueless about when to start cooking what? Need advice on how to deal with cranky relatives and picky kids and the issue of television in general and football in particular?