ROUSES_Winter2023_Magazine Pages-web

Better Call Butterball By Susan Langenhennig Granger Every year around this time, millions of Americans come down with an acute case of diemeleagrisphobia . How bad is the afflic tion? A quick Google search provides clues. Type in “fear of cooking turkey” and 67.5 million (million!) results come up. “Is it difficult to cook turkey” produces a whopping 158 million results. D iemeleagrisphobia isn’t a real word in Latin — or any language, for that matter. It’s not even a true phobia, given that it was purportedly coined by Food Network host Alton Brown to sum up the fear of cooking a Thanks giving turkey. But it is, nonetheless, a common feeling, as Nicole Johnson can attest. She spends weeks leading up to Thanksgiving and throughout the holiday season counseling those afflicted.

16 ROUSES WINTER 2023