THANKFUL FOR AN EMPTY OVEN? : TAKE-HOME HOLIDAY FARE GETS A BOOST.

Byline: Heesun Wee Daily News Staff Writer

Joy Stevenson of Woodland Hills used to get quite a workout on Thanksgiving Day.

While family and friends mingled throughout the house, Stevenson frantically prodded ingredients into tasty dishes in her kitchen. She was so busy orchestrating the feast that socializing with guests was nearly impossible.

``I would be running to have a toast,'' she recalled, ``and running back to make sure the rolls weren't burning.''

Well, no more.

Today, on our country's annual pause for gratitude and good fortune, more consumers like Stevenson, a Beverly Hills-based talent agent, are shunning their kitchens and embracing convenient take-home holiday meals.

Instead of scouring the supermarket for holiday menu ingredients, tallying up a bill of no less than $200 and toiling in the kitchen for days, this time Stevenson simply ordered a take-home Thanksgiving meal from County Line in Tarzana. For $130, Stevenson and her 20 guests will enjoy a smoked turkey with all the traditional fixings - minus the customary cooking.

``I haven't done this before. But I'm setting a new precedent and making my life easier for me,'' she declared.

Sure, families are still doing Thanksgiving the laborious, old-fashioned way. But many, including Stevenson, are converting to a modern approach to the holiday.

And grocery stores, supermarkets and restaurants are savvy to this '90s trend. They're aggressively vying for the dollars of time-pressed, cooking-shy and travel-happy consumers who are used to drive-throughs and takeout food.

Changing family and work dynamics are driving the switch to take-home Thanksgiving meals, according to food experts.

``There is a poverty of time for preparing a full Thanksgiving dinner,'' said James Lowry, a retail analyst and professor at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind.

The made-from-scratch holiday feast ``is extinct for people where you have two people in a household working, or a single parent working,'' said Nancy Backas, a Chicago-based free-lancer who writes about the food industry.

And when time is scarce, many don't want to spend it in a kitchen. Added Lowry, ``You'd like to spend your time relating to the family, instead of relating to an oven.''

But even more frightening to home economists, the boom in take-home meals is also reflective of the masses who don't know how to relate to an oven.

In the 1950s, more women either stayed at home or worked only part time. They had time to learn cooking basics from mothers and grandmothers. Nowadays, the culinary nuts and bolts behind a successful holiday feast aren't as likely to be passed down from generation to generation.

``That understanding of the fundamentals of cooking isn't there anymore,'' said Lisa Doermann, publication director for the California Restaurant Association in Los Angeles.

``A stigma has been placed on learning those basic skills in high school,'' said Backas.

The result: Lots of people don't know their way around a kitchen.

Backas should know. For four holiday seasons, from 1991 to 1994, she fielded about 230 calls every four hours for the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line.

The closer to the holiday, the more frantic the callers: Why is my bird still frozen solid? What's in this small plastic bag inside my turkey? My oven's broken! Help!

``I just felt like saying, `Why are you trying to do this meal when you don't even cook the rest of the year?' '' Backas said.

Ironically, cooking beginners, who regularly rely on supermarket deli counters and fast-food restaurants for no-fuss meals, turn into Martha Stewart wanna-bes during the holidays. But they're invariably disappointed because food industry conveniences, which began to take root in the 1960s and blossomed in the 1970s, only have encouraged the general shortage of cooking knowledge, food experts say.

By 1995, 61 percent of consumers were choosing takeout dinners more often than a decade ago, according to a 1995 Consumer Reports on Eating Share Trends (CREST) survey. In two-career families, neither parent has the time, energy or desire to cook and clean up.

Although no comprehensive national survey has been done to track take-home holiday meals' growth, Jared Smith, a spokesman for the National Restaurant Association in Washington, D.C., said their popularity is booming. About six years ago, Whole Foods Market's holiday meals debuted, and sales have increased 20 percent to 40 percent annually. Demand for Gelson's holiday meals grew 50 percent between 1994 and 1995. Each Boston Market restaurant sold about 350 holiday meals of ham last year.

Supermarket industry experts say take-home holiday meals premiered in the early 1980s and recently have mushroomed. Many grocery stores, supermarkets and restaurants now offer the holiday meals, priced at $40 to more than $100. Some are vegetarian. Most must be preordered and picked up on the holiday.

Preprepared or not, some people pass on Thanksgiving customs altogether and instead take advantage of the four-day weekend to travel.

A record-breaking 1 million passengers are expected to converge at Los Angeles International Airport this Thanksgiving break, the busiest travel period, according to airport officials. And the Automobile Club of Southern California estimates nearly 4.9 million people in the Western United States will hit the roads and travel by car this long weekend.

But Thanksgiving traditionalists need not despair. Not everyone is abandoning their kitchens.

Beverly Taki, 42, of Malibu, knows how to cook for the holidays and enjoys it.

The president of the business section of the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences in Alexandria, D.C., fancies Thanksgiving's practices.

``I enjoy getting out my china and platter,'' she said. ``It's the tradition of getting dressed up ...

``If you just buy these things (take-home meals) and eat it, and say, `We're done now, let's go to the movies,' it changes the reason of why we have Thanksgiving,'' Taki bemoaned.

But even Taki has wavered a bit toward convenience.

Taki, her husband and her 13-year-old spend Thanksgiving with friends in Santa Barbara. And, like many, the two families will share the burden of preparing the banquet.

Taki will bring her mincemeat pie, green beans and mashed potatoes. Her friend will supply the rest.

But Taki said she never would order an entire take-home holiday meal.

``I wouldn't even think that was Thanksgiving,'' she scoffed. ``I might bend and buy a pie.''

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) TAKE IT ON THE ROAD

'90s Thanksgiving often means takeout turkeys and travel

Bob Halvorsen/Daily News

(2) Beverly Taki of Malibu, who's splitting the cooking chores with friends in Santa Barbara, wouldn't dream of serving a take-home Thanksgiving dinner, although she concedes she might possible buy a pie.

Tom Mendoza/Daily News