Pics Of Hot Birds

They beckon from the cover of top magazines. Their skin is burnished and shimmery, their thighs and breasts plumped seductively. Some even are lying on a bed of roasted vegetables. No it;s not Gigi Haddid or any Kardashian. It's those magazie covers of Thanksgiving turkeys. For home chefs' it's what a Thanksgiving dinner should be. For food magazine editors, it's the jewel in the crown, the raison d'etre for any periodical dedicated to cooking.

Tejal Rao got the fun assignment of heading to various food magazines  for the New York Times food section today. She interviewed several editors from various food magazines and they all agreed that the November issue is a big deal thanks to competing with the turkeys shown on Instagram and Facebook.It's like the September and March issues of fashion magazines.It's the biggest, most ad packed and competitive issue of the year.Editors are attuned to the smallest changes in bird presentation, from sizes and props to angles and colors. The overall picture shapes the issue's tone and more importantly  the reader's reaction. Switch it up and it could cause an uproar.Maile Carpenter, editor in chief at Food Network Magazine once had a carved turkey on the magazine's cover which was a pretty wild thing to do.

Does this make for a hot selling magazine? Maybe . According to another editor in chief,Adam Rapaport of Bon Appetit, feels that an entire bird looks like an emoji. A sliced one conveys how delicious it is, , showing us perfectly cooked flesh. The editors were even more daring in 2014, when the November issue had a split cover.One side featured the classic golden roast while the other had a big bowl of buttery mashed potatoes.It was daring, They didn't track reader response or amount of sales but it probably had a reaction. Analytics have shown that a cover with turkey slices and sides on a plate perform better than one with a whole bird. Covers with pies  have mixed results while cakes consistently under perform. Shooting  a cover bird is not an easy task. Laura Ionotti of Rachel Ray Everyday hired out a team who could handle the shoot with objective eyes.. They fix and arrange every prop so that the entire scene looks perfect but not so perfect that it's off putting.

The November issue of any food magazine is the crucial issue.It's all because of the glam bird on the cover.It's delicious.