I know we’ve already discussed stock. We can always keep doing that, right? It’s the holidays, which means you might have a turkey on your hands. The answer is twofold: you must make stock from your carcass, and you must become the kind of person who enthusiastically requests carcasses from others so you can make stock from theirs, too.

A ten-gallon pot is a modest investment here. It’s truly hilarious how the price of stock pots go north up to a certain point, and then you enter the land of commercial restaurant equipment and they drop. So you really need to go to a place that sells commercial equipment, and you will buy a stock pot for, like, $90. You will feel like you got away with something, which is true because you did.

You will also need a chest freezer for what I pray are obvious reasons. These are also shockingly cheap. They do one thing and one thing well. For those who work with meat and preserve stuff, they are invaluable. I live in the midwest, which grows nothing for five months out of the year. As I write this, my chest freezer is practically full.

Finally, quart deli containers, which come in 48-packs on Amazon; and a chinois, which strains out all of the particulate bits and has a lot of versatility outside of stock. (Think sauces.)

Pre-holiday weekend, the lifehack is to bring two garbage bags to your friends’ celebrations, and then ask very politely, and then double-bag it. You will be viewed as an insane person, and then you will offer them a few quarts of stock – their stock, from their bird, for zero money or effort – in return. Throw it in your chest freezer when you’re home. Collect them like a raccoon.

On the day of your celebration, fill your stock pot from the bathtub, rinse any freezer burn off the carcasses, roast them at 425º for 30 minutes, and slough them into the stock pot. Get it up to the boil, then back to the barest simmer possible. Very little heat is needed in practice.

Before you go to bed, you will ask me: will having an active stove cause your house to burn down? Not in my personal experience. Good night!

After 24 hours, it’s time to strain & freeze. I cut heat, remove as many bones as I can, wait an hour, and fill into each deli container, straining through the chinois as I go. Then everything goes into the chest freezer.

I’ve already told you what to do with stock.