A warning if you're going to buy a pre-cooked turkey.

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I fell for this 2 years ago, when we bought a frozen pre-cooked turkey from a grocery store (along with some frozen side dishes). The employees at the store will ask you what day you want to pick up the frozen food. I told them, the day before Thanksgiving. Then, I get it home, and it says to thaw the frozen, fully-cooked turkey in the refrigerator for 72 hours. Thanks a lot for telling me that in advance, employees!!!! I ended up staying up all night thawing it in a water bath to get it defrosted enough to do the rest in the oven. It still did not taste right and had a leftover taste to it. And this was not entirely safe to do by food safety standards. Fortunately we had enough other homemade dishes that the turkey really didn't stand out. Moral of the story: if you are going to buy one of these pre-packaged meals or just the turkey, fully cooked but frozen, pick it up on the Monday before Thanksgiving at the latest, because it will take 3 days in the refrigerator just to thaw out!