Greenberg's — Best Smoked Turkey in the U.S.A.

It's not even close.

The family-run Tyler, Texas company wins by a country mile.

I ordered one a couple years ago and it was even better than billed — and that was a rave review by Molly O'Neill, then of the New York Times Dining section, who wrote that their bird was picked clean in a New York minute after arriving in the Times newsroom.

Why not give yourself — and everyone else who has to suffer along with you during gravy stress time, as an old acquaintance calls Thanksgiving day — a break and enjoy the holiday?

Read this story and perhaps you'll see the light.

$3.80/pound for a world-class product is cheap at five times the price in my book.
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Note added Friday, November 9, 2007 at 5:19 p.m. EST: Charles Passy reviewed five mail-order smoked turkeys in today's Wall Street Journal "Catalog Critic" feature.

The winner by a country mile: Greenberg's.

He wrote, "This hickory-smoked turkey, flavored with a proprietary mix of spices..., qualified as one of the most striking mail-order food products that's ever come to our door."

Bonus: It was also the cheapest of the five birds, proving that you don't always get what you pay for.