The SFist test kitchen has come up with a great idea. Sometime in the next week, arrange to see your friends or family at a big meal. Imagine how pleasant it will be to rediscover the quirks and foibles of your kin. You could even take this opportunity to clear up any issues you've let simmer over the last year. You'll thank us for giving you the chance to air out the metaphorical closets.

We think the idea will catch on.

But what should you serve? Turkeys are at the height of their season right now: Every market seems to have them. (Note, we used a chicken for a trial run) We prefer juicy and flavorful heritage turkeys, the once-endangered breeds now enjoying a comeback thanks to the efforts of Slow Food and Heritage Foods USA. But we admit they're so pricey they make Ferry Plaza markups seem reasonable. A good free-range, organically raised turkey will work as well. We're roasting one of our turkeys, smoking the other. We're sure some of you like to deep fry these birds, but we've not tried it ourselves.

Turkey begs for a good gravy, often because the bird itself is so dry that it needs some other liquid on the plate. We make a velouté sauce for our gravy. Early on the day of the dinner, we pull the little goodie bag out of the turkey, and use the neck and wing tips to make a flavorful turkey stock. We use the organs in the goodie bag in the stuffing.

When the turkey comes out of the oven and you're letting it rest so the juices resettle, use the rendered fat to make a roux. Heat the fat in a pan (supplementing with butter, if need be), and add an equal amount (plus a little) of flour. Stir until the mixture resembles pancake batter. We cook the roux until it has a deep brown color and a nutty aroma, and then we whisk in the stock, a splash of white wine, and the juices released by the turkey. For every tablespoon of fat, we use one tablespoon plus one teaspoon of flour, and we add around one cup of liquid. Bring the sauce back to a gentle boil as you continue to whisk, and remove from the heat when the liquid is thick and velvety. Add salt to taste. Serve as quickly as you can, for it will thicken as it cools.

We keep the stuffing simple. Two days before we make it, we buy a good loaf of Acme bread. If you forget to buy the loaf in advance, dry out the bread by dicing it and putting it in a 250° oven for about half an hour. We mince shallots, carrots, and celery and lightly sauté them in butter until soft. We chop fresh, autumny herbs, brown some rabbit sausage from Fatted Calf and slice it into rounds, dice some tart, firm apples, chop up the little organs that were in the turkey's goodie bag, and dice the loaf of bread into medium-sized cubes. Finally, we toss everything together with a pinch of salt and some grinds of the pepper mill, and add enough turkey stock to moisten everything without drenching it.

We don't use the stuffing in the bird. It extends the cooking time noticeably, and keeps the bird in that iffy temperature zone that encourages bacterial growth. When the turkey's resting after it cooks, we put the stuffing into the oven at 350°, until it browns.

What do we drink with this meal? We keep things food friendly and easy to enjoy: Mosel Riesling, real Beaujolais (not Beaujolais Nouveau), Pinot Noir, and some rosé Champagne.

Enjoy the time with your friends and family. Keep the conversation amiable, and above all, eat well. Happy Thanksgiving.