Smoke & Soul: Thanksgiving on the Smoker

Thanksgiving is the biggest cooking day of the year — and the oven is too small for it. Move the turkey outside.

In this holiday companion to Smoke & Soul, Dr. Christopher D. Pritchard, D.D. puts the whole feast on the smoker and the grill. Fifty original recipes: brined, injected, and smoked turkeys — whole, spatchcocked, bone-in breast, and fair-style legs — plus gravy made from the smoker drippings and the sides everybody fights over, all kissed with real wood smoke: three-cheese mac & cheese, sweet potato casserole with pecan streusel, cast-iron cornbread dressing, from-scratch green bean casserole.

It starts with a dawn-to-dinner timeline that works backward from the table so the day runs calm, and it ends with smoked pumpkin and pecan pies and a full leftovers chapter — gumbo, pot pie, and the day-after sandwich — because the cook's reward comes on Friday. No pretension. No gatekeeping. Just the best Thanksgiving bird of your life, and an oven that's finally free.