Family Food Fiasco Receives Holiday Meal Makeover; Ocean Spray Announces Winners of National Thanksgiving Makeover Contest.

LAKEVILLE-MIDDLEBORO, Mass. -- Every year millions of Americans attempt to perfect the traditional Thanksgiving meal, but more often than not, fiasco stories are more memorable than the delicious feast itself. Whether the turkey burned, gravy never thickened or the pumpkin pie is tasteless once again, holiday food stories are passed along year after year. For the women of Salem, Ohio; New Berlin, Wisconsin and Castro Valley, California; their Thanksgiving fiascoes will likely be some of the most memorable holiday stories told since their culinary disasters won Ocean Spray's Thanksgiving Makeover Contest.

Americans were asked to submit their most outrageous or funny, food-related, real-life Thanksgiving Day experience explaining why they are in need of a Thanksgiving makeover. Out of more than 700 entries, the story from Audrey Popp whose sister was in desperate need of culinary assistance in order to impress a boyfriend with a homemade holiday meal won the grand prize.

According to Audrey, a few days before Thanksgiving she received a desperate phone call from her sister in need of help. Her sister had invited the man she was hoping to marry over for Thanksgiving dinner and needed assistance in impressing the guy with her cooking expertise. As Audrey arrived that afternoon, her sister was in a frenzy and she was more concerned with her attire and styling her hair than cooking the meal. She mentioned to Audrey that the turkey was sitting in the oven and she had prepared it just as their mother had always done. Growing up, their mother had begun cooking the

25-pound family turkey at 2:00 a.m. serving dinner at noon. Following in her mother's footsteps, Audrey's sister also started her turkey at 2:00 a.m. The only problem was her turkey was 15 pounds smaller and dinner was at 4:00 p.m. instead of noon. Her sister had left the turkey in the oven for over 14 hours. When Audrey opened the oven, instead of a crisp browned turkey, she found something that did not resemble a turkey at all -- just a gooey mess with bones protruding from a carcass. To say the least, her sisters' date was not impressed.

First place winner, Holly Roge from New Berlin, Wisconsin entered a story of her most memorable Thanksgiving Day as a child. Late one night Holly's father proudly came home with the grand prize from a bowling tournament. The next morning, he woke up the children with his exciting news - he had won a turkey for their Thanksgiving dinner. With great enthusiasm he took the children out to the garage where they saw a large crate, he opened the box and out ran a LIVE turkey! The incident became comical when Holly's father tried to put the turkey back into the crate. Unsuccessfully, he chased the turkey around the garage until he was totally exhausted and the children were laughing hysterically. Soon after their father went off to the butcher to prepare the prized bird. On Thanksgiving Day their father proudly served his turkey - which to his great dismay - no one would eat. The children all cried because they had seen it alive and refused to eat it.

The second place prize winner, Shari Noda is from Castro Valley, California. As a new vegetarian, Shari wanted to cook a special vegetarian-friendly meal for her family on Thanksgiving. Trying to impress her still meat-eating clan, she was challenged by making the tastiest vegetarian dishes she could find. As she brought the tofurkey to the table, she heard a gasp. "What the HECK is that?" muttered her father. "Tofurkey!" she announced with conviction. "Toe-whattie?" a prim and proper aunt whispered as if repeating a possibly objectionable word. "To-tasteless" snarled her teenage son who was highly annoyed that he was not having a real turkey like all of his friends. Tofurkey will not be invited to her dinner table this year and her husband has already proposed that if she wants to keep the family together she better watch her "P's and Tofurkey-Q's".

The grand prize winner from Salem, Ohio receives an expense paid trip for two to Boston, Massachusetts, for a one-hour consultation with celebrity chef Ming Tsai, host of the Simply Ming cooking show on Public Television, along with dinner for two at his acclaimed restaurant, Blue Ginger. The first prize winner, a resident of New Berlin, Wisconsin will receive $500, a year supply of Contessa(R) shrimp for a family of five, and a gift package. Second prize winner, a resident of Castro Valley, California will receive $250 and a gift package from Ocean Spray(R). Prizes are provided by Ming Tsai, American Airlines, Jurys Boston Hotel, and Contessa(R) Food Products.

Ocean Spray(R) is the number one brand of canned and bottled juice drinks in the U.S., with 2003 sales of nearly $1 billion. Formed in 1930, the cooperative is made up of cranberry growers from Massachusetts, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and other parts of Canada, as well as Florida grapefruit growers.