Who You Gonna Call? Butterball Turkey Talk-Line Can Help in a Pinch

By SCOTT VIAU (Patch Staff)

It may seem simple. You set the temperature on the oven. Put any spices you want on the turkey. And then you set it and forget it.

But that’s not always the case. From people who are cooking a turkey for the first time to those who are just looking for a little guidance, the team at the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line headquartered in Naperville, IL, is there to help.

For more than 30 years, turkey experts have been fielding questions from concerned cooks looking to make that perfect bird. The Talk-Line has become just as traditional as pumpkin pie.

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La Grange resident Janice Stahl is one of those experts. She’s been with the team for nine years and has had more than a few memorable experiences with callers.

“One of my favorite ones came in years ago,” Stahl said. “I can completely relate to this call. She was newly married and had her in-laws over and she was whispering. I said to her, ‘I can’t really hear you’ and she said to me, ‘I’m in the hallway closet.’”

She had never made a turkey before and needed guidance desperately. Stahl told her how to do temperature readings and how to carve it.

Hours later the woman called back to say thank you. Stahl and the crew at the Butterball Talk-Line helped saved the woman’s Thanksgiving.

“It’s things like that where you go, ‘Oh my gosh, this is why I do this,’” Stahl said.

A few years back, Stahl had an elderly man call who had recently lost his wife. She had always made the turkey, and with family coming to visit, he wanted to do it just like her but didn’t know how.

“If I could have flown to his house and made his turkey I would have,” Stahl said.

She walked him through the whole process of what sides to buy, how to prepare the bird and everything.

“It was a really beautiful call and it’s one of those times where you say ‘I love what I do.’”

Most people want the Thanksgiving holiday off, but Stahl says she loves working on it because it gives her an opportunity to help others.

“If you call in on Thanksgiving day, you’re really needing help,” she said. “That’s the day you want to work.”

They also help with people who are trying to deep-fry turkeys, which can often result indisaster.

Stahl usually spends her Thanksgiving traveling for Butterball doing interviews on national media, but that’s not to say she goes without a Thanksgiving meal. Fortunately, her husband can cook and does it well, according to Stahl. She and her family will enjoy the holiday later in the evening.

While women are often in charge of the meal, more men have been calling up the Talk-Line over the years.

“The men are more precise,” she said. “They want to really know all the details. While women are a little more quick.”

But it’s not just turkey the Talk-Line operators are experts in. Most of the employees were home economics majors in college so they have tips for people who need information about making side dishes, as well. From pumpkin pie to mashed potatoes, the experts can help with just about anything a Thanksgiving meal might consist of.

“For the most part, it’s turkey, but we’ll get some other calls. We’re happy to help,” Stahl said.

Think home ec is a useless course or major? Think again. If you want a job on the turkey Talk-Line, that’s exactly what Butterball is looking for.

“You have to be a home ec major or a dietitian or a chef,” Stahl said. “You will go through Butterball University and you will go through that for three years. It’s just a couple of weeks (each year) before the season where you go through some training.”

Once you’re done with that, you have two days of training before the holiday season begins.

But it appears that once you get the job, you stay for awhile.

“People have been here for a really long time,” Stahl said. “It’s not a job where people really leave. We may hire one person a year.”

A few years back, however, Butterball went looking for more men to become Talk-Line experts.

“We wanted to add men to Talk-Line because we were getting so many male callers,” Stahl said.

Out of the 50 Talk-Line experts, three or four of them are men. Together, they’ll field calls from people all over the United States, Canada and military bases.

The ages of the Talk-Line operators range between people in their mid-20s to people in their mid-70s. And with all that experience, there’s plenty of tips to share among the callers, as well as each other

“The other day I brought in a new recipe that I tried for Butternut Squash Blackbean Chili and I shared it with some people because it was so good,” Stahl said. “Yeah, that’s what we do here. We all swap recipes here. We cook for a living here.”

On Thanksgiving day alone, the experts will field more than 10,000 calls. And the phone calls don’t stop the day after.

“You’ll get calls from people who maybe weren’t thrilled with the way they did it and they want to improve for next year. So they want to go through the whole process of what they did and where they went wrong,” Stahl said. “Or you get people calling in saying, ‘I had a great Thanksgiving’ and ‘Thank you.’”

Most of the people who work there are only around 20 minutes away from the Naperville location, but one woman who lives in Iowa has family in the area so she comes back during the season and stays with family and takes calls.

And for those working on Thanksgiving, they’ll also get a meal.

The Talk-Line is open this and next week from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. CST Thanksgiving Day and on the weekends 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

For information on how to properly cook your turkey, visit the Butterball website or call at 1-800-BUTTERBALL.

Butterball also is holding a contest for a chance to win a $1,000 Visa gift card.