Sonya Thomas, the 100-lb champion competitive eater who won last year's women's Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest , is back for a little pre-Thanksgiving turkey action. The petite eating machine was in town yesterday for a Wild Turkey (yes, the whiskey)-sponsored turkey eating contest in Times Square, which she dominated despite facing some significantly larger competition. more ›

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and if you're cooking instead of eating out on the big day, it's time to talk turkey. Who better to break the bird down than a professional butcher? We spoke to Brent Young at Williamsburg's The Meat Hook, which transforms into a one-stop Thanksgiving shop next week, to get the ultimate turkey tips. And if you're more of a visual learner, stop by the shop all day on November 19 and 20 for free Thanksgiving how-to demos on everything from turkey carving to pie making. Take it away, Brent! more ›

The wild turkey population out in Staten Island just keeps on growing—bad for neighbors but great for folks looking for an illegal Thanksgiving bird with some serious New York City terroir. In this economy, why bother with an expensive overfed industrial turkey when you can get one that most likely has never set foot on mainland America? more ›

The U.N. makes us think of lots of things (diplomats, platitudes, architecture), but physical altercations are not normally one of them. And yet now video has surfaced from last week's General Assembly showing an all-out, eh, scuffle inside the U.N. which seems to have started when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was shoved by a United Nations security Guard. more ›

Earlier this week the USDA warned that it had connected 77 illnesses and one death in 26 states to turkey contaminated with an antibiotic-resistant strain of salmonella called Heidelberg. At the time they weren't sure where the bad turkey was coming from, but they seem to have a better idea now. Arkansas-based Cargill Meat Solutions has announced a recall of approximately 36 million pounds of ground turkey products. more ›

Planning on cooking up a nice, juicy turkey burger for dinner tonight? Do make sure that you cook it all the way through. The USDA has issued a public health alert for frozen, fresh and ground turkey products after testing connected 77 illnesses and one death in 26 states to bad turkey contaminated with a salmonella strain called Heidelberg. more ›

When 23-year-old dental assistant, and Staten Island local Gina talked about her fear of the borough's wild turkeys, well, it was more amusing than terror-inducing. She declared: "It was straight out of Cujo. I'm sitting in my car Facebooking on my phone when turkeys jumped on my windshield. I screamed like I was being murdered. They just kept looking at me like it was their car. I felt trapped. I was so scared." But now a new video has surfaced showing the turkeys standing eerily still, and it puts the fear in us. Really, the first few seconds of footage are almost Hitchcockian, or at least James Nguyenian. more ›

Has Santeria moved to the suburbs? After a spate of strange animal body parts turning up in Prospect Park this year, including a goat's head, one reader stumbled upon an animal's heart within a chalk heart outline in Glenwood Lake in New Rochelle yesterday. According to local police, this isn't the first animal part to be found around Westchester parks this year: a goat who had been sexually assaulted was discovered in Yonkers and a beheaded sheep was found in Ward Acres in New Rochelle. Police believe this heart was a turkey's heart, and are unsure whether it was college kids playing a joke or part of this recent streak of ritualistic animal killings. more ›

All of us were told at some point in elementary school about the historical context of Thanksgiving: give thanks, blah blah blah, but soon we realized the truth. On Thanksgiving, we sit at a table with family and friends and eat until our jeggings don't fit anymore. Today competitive hot dog eater Takeru Kobayashi, takes the overeating tradition to a whole new level. Just 11 days after he failed to break the Guinness Record for pizza eating, Kobayashi will attempt a new challenge; he will eat an entire turkey by himself. (Who says the holidays are all about sharing?) more ›

News flash: Most New Yorkers don't want to share their turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy, and, mmm, stuffing with Mayor Bloomberg. A poll from Quinnipiac found that 56% of New Yorkers wouldn't invite the second richest man in NYC to Thanksgiving dinner, while only 42% would. This is probably because Bloomberg would take your salt and tell you how many calories you're consuming—total gluttony buzzkill! more ›

The problem with Thanksgiving is that all the food tends to soak up the alcohol in your stomach, thus making it harder to attain that blissful state of intoxication wherein your relatives' little comments can't drive you into a homicidal rage. Thankfully, Georgi Vodka and the United Restaurant and Tavern Owners Association are here to help. For the past three days, chefs have been infusing a turkey with five different flavors of vodka and preparing a gravy that contains 100-proof vodka. At a press conference at PD O’Hurley’s today, they unveiled the prototype of "the nation’s only 100-proof turkey." more ›

If you want an organic or free-range bird for your Thanksgiving feast, we hope you've been saving up! As turkeys start flying off the shelves for Thursday's festivities, the Daily News notes that organic, wild or otherwise fancy birds are going for as much as $14 a pound. But what's $150 for a beloved family who will spend the whole meal criticizing your cooking and then pass out watching the Jets game while you do the dishes? more ›

Even though a surveillance camera appeared to film him stealing a 12-pound turkey breast in his pants, Deon Williams denied the tryptophan-tinged theft, telling the Post, "I didn't do it. OK, I stole a cold-cut sandwich because I was hungry, but I put everything [else] back." more ›

As the Department of Environmental Conservation prepares a questionnaire that will determine the fate of the Staten Island wild turkeys, locals have been speaking out... and now City Councilman James Oddo is lambasting the idea. According to the Daily News, he says, "A turkey attitude survey is beyond a farce. Is this 'Turkey Survivor'? Are we going to vote these turkeys off the island?" Or are we going to vote these turkeys into our bellies? (Here's a recipe, just in case.) You decide... and we'll keep an eye on the IP addresses to make sure our turkey overlords aren't rigging the results. more ›

Back in 2004, Victoria Ruvolo of Long Island became the victim of a terrible prank gone wrong. After a group of teenagers bought a 20-pound frozen turkey with a stolen credit card, 18-year-old Ryan Cushing decided to launch the bird out of their moving car. It crashed into Ruvolo's windshield, and the accident left her in a coma and with her face shattered. But she begged the judge to have mercy on Cushing (who got just six months in jail), and to this day harbors few hard feelings. "If I hadn't let go of that anger, I'd be consumed by this need for revenge," said Ruvolo. "Forgiving him helps me move on." more ›

A Brooklyn teen was arrested after allegedly stealing a turkey breast on Monday. Deon Williams was arrested after a Bedford-Stuyvesant grocery's surveillance camera caught him taking a 12-pound turkey breast and putting it into his sweat pants. An indignant cashier at the Fine Fare Grocery yelled to the butcher, "He's got a big turkey in his pants!" So butcher Serigo Marte gave chase. more ›

It's not quite the UniCab, but it's close. According to the Daily News, two manufacturers are at the top of the competition to design the city's new fleet: Nissan and Turkish company Karsan. And while Nissan could have us riding in "vanettes," Karsan exec Jean Nahu bragged to the Post, "We have produced the only model that fully conforms to the requirements set forth by the mayor." more ›

Over the weekend, a tipster sent us this photo taken in a service elevator at the Union Square Whole Foods, where "cooked, prepared turkey breasts were being carted upstairs along side filthy garbage cans and employees with dirty dustbins." The world was shocked and appalled, and Whole Foods has issued this statement in an attempt to put the incident behind them: more ›

A press release with this thrilling title landed in the inbox this morning: "CONTROVERSIAL 100 PROOF VODKA INFUSED HOLIDAY TURKEY IS BEING UNVEILED FOR THE HOLIDAY'S BY LOCAL NYC TAVERN. NO ONE UNDER 21 ALLOWED TO EAT AND INCLUDES A TAXI RIDE HOME." To which we would only add BARF. Earlier today Paul Hurley at O'Casey's Tavern on East 41st Street began injecting an unspecified number of 20-pound birds with 8 ounces of 100 proof flavored Georgi vodka: peach, raspberry, cherry and apple. Most of the vodka will evaporate out of the turkeys during cooking, but O'Casey's chef has planned for that, and he's preparing a vodka-infused gravy, served with a straw. more ›

The animal rights advocates at PETA wanted to run this commercial during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC. However, the organization says they were told their "family-friendly announcement against abusing turkeys" didn't meet network standards. "The station asked us to give more information about the cruelty behind turkey slaughter to back up the statements made in the ad. But even after we sent the network this New York Times article chronicling the grisly facts about turkey factory farming, it nixed the ad." They say they had a kid-centric audience in mind when they created it, but we imagine if any kids listened to the ad they might choose to go hungry this Thursday! more ›

It's a Thanksgiving miracle! A wild turkey hailing from Staten Island found her way to the New Jersey Turnpike, where for days she's been dodging vehicles and worrying toll booth attendants. more ›

Yesterday morning a reader spotted this turkey in Battery Park, and told us "no one else seemed to notice." Everyone is probably just used to seeing the turkey around though: it's Zelda! The last we heard she had wandered onto the West Side Highway, where cars skidded to avoid her in 2004; then she was spotted again in 2006. more ›

It's confirmed: Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is having some bad luck with the media. Her time on the Republican Party's top ticket was marred by a few missteps--namely with her handlers limiting her time with the media, being over- or underprepared with the media or McCain-Palin insiders complaining to the media about her. But now that she's back in her native state, one would think that her aides could make sure she doesn't stand in front of the turkey killing machine during an interview after pardoning a turkey for Thanksgiving. more ›

Slice took the photo here and wondered what the story was behind this sign, which is part of a series of alternating signs in the window of a Union Street home in Park slope. Well, our buddy at the NSA owed us a favor, and we tracked down the man behind the cryptic signage. more ›

At the Ethnic Market highlights international specialty foods and ingredients that you're very unlikely to find at your local Gristedes. more ›

A day after the NY Post served up a Thanksgiving day front page cover of Knicks president and coach Isiah Thomas as a turkey, the embattled Thomas proclaimed he would stay in his job, saying, "I don't foresee there being any changes this year." Which the Post calls "LOAD OF BULL?" But really, if there's one thing that the Post and Daily News must have been thankful for, it's having such a spectacularly poorly managed... more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a foot pursuit on West 50th St. and Broadway in Manhattan, a missing person on West 110th St. in Manhattan, and a stabbing on Grove St. and Seneca Ave. in Queens.
• The 57-year-old man shot to death by a federal agent during a grenade sting this week was a career criminal. Authorities believe the proposed sale of what turned out to be an inert grenade was probably just an attempt to scam a gullible buyer.
• On the heels of his attempt to curb NYC's pigeon population, Councilman James Oddo now wants to reduce the population of wild turkeys on Staten Island, which he claims are a nuisance to the town of Ocean Breeze.
• Dick Wilson, the actor who played the ("Don't Squeeze the") Charmin salesman Mr. Whipple, died this week.
• A firefighter featured in the 2005 Calendar of Heroes was arrested on misdemeanor assault charges yesterday.
• Contrary to popular opinion, it isn't the tryptophan in turkey that makes people tired after Thanksgiving dinner. The likely culprit is a combination of eating too much, alcohol, and a long day.
• Approximately 1,000 doctors at Columbia University are now at risk for identity theft after a healthcare provider published their social security numbers online.
• BoingBoing brings us the holiday krunk video "Turkey Wrap."

We hope the following doesn't put anyone off their appetite before they've even had a chance to tuck into their Thanksgiving feast, but we have to describe what champion eater Tim Janus managed to consume in a publicity feast for charity. In the course of 15 minutes, Janus gobbled down the following:A 10-pound turkey Four pounds of mashed potatoes Three pounds of cranberry sauce Two and a half pounds of green beans This was accomplished... more ›