Turkey Load Test 2025: Benchmarking My Oven Like a Distributed System

Most people cook their Thanksgiving turkey by following a recipe.

I… load tested my oven.

The Setup

I treated the oven like a distributed system node:

• CPU temp → oven temperature
• Memory pressure → how much food you cram inside
• I/O throughput → how often the door opens
• Latency → cook time
• Request spikes → hungry family members

I instrumented the cook cycle with a tiny script:

export function monitorOven(temp: number, load: number) {
return {
  status: temp > 425 ? "🔥 overload" :
          temp < 300 ? "❄️ underheated" : "👌 stable",
  load,
  timestamp: Date.now()
};
}

Results

• Opening the oven door every 12 minutes (my dad’s idea) added ~45 minutes of latency
• Stuffing the oven with rolls, yams, and a pan of bacon-wrapped asparagus caused thermal thrashing
• A stable 350°F with minimal I/O produced the best throughput

Reflection

Turns out: Thanksgiving dinner is a distributed system with terrible documentation.

And just like production:

• Observability matters
• Interference kills performance
• And load tests reveal surprising truths

Dinner was fantastic. My oven survived. 10/10 would benchmark again.