If you're planning for Thanksgiving, and have your eye on a turkey deep-fryer, you might want to know this, from November's Consumer Reports: “Many of the deep fryers are potentially so dangerous that Underwriters Laboratories, the testing and certification organization, has taken the unusual step of refusing to certify any of them as safe.”

Problems are that the deep-fryers can tip over easily (can you image the damage that 5 gallons of scalding oil could do?); oil can spill onto the burner, engulfing the whole thing in flames, and frying a partially frozen turkey caused oil to spatter.

I'd stick with the oven, myself, especially if there are children within a half-mile.

Required Reading

There have been a lot of celebrity cooks from Louisiana. Remember Justin Wilson? Paul Prudhomme? And, of course, Emeril Lagasse? But you know most food in southern Louisiana is cooked by women, day in and day out. Eula Mae Dore is one of those Cajun cooks who's lived on Avery Island (where they make Tabasco sauce) for more than 50 years and cooked in the McIlhenny Co. Commissary.

Her new book Eula Mae's Cajun Kitchen (Harvard Common Press; $22.95), written with Marcelle R. Bienvenue, shares her home-cooking recipes, tips and memories. These are traditional recipes for all the Cajun classics, but every cook does them a little differently. They're arranged around events and seasons, so you'll find Thanksgiving recipes, ideas for a Halloween bonfire, a May wedding or a traditional New Year's day celebration. Sausage and shrimp gumbo, fig preserves, couche-couche and maque-choux, deep bayou punch, shrimp Creole and peach cobbler are among the recipes.

From Eula Mae's Cajun Kitchen:

“It's time for a little history lesson. Listen well. Some say that the word jambalaya came from the French word jambon for ham, the African ya meaning rice and the Acadian phrase a la. And you must understand that there are brown jambalayas made by caramelizing and browning the onions and meats, and red ones made by adding tomatoes. There are as many recipes for jambalayas as there are for gumbos in Louisiana. Personally, I like a bit of tomatoes in mine; I think it gives a nice flavor. But, I'll let you taste, and then you can make up your own mind.”

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