My aunt and uncle are serving steaks. I guess the price was no object to them, but it certainly would be for me. So on Friday when I eat with my future daughter-in-law, we’ll be having turkey.
Despite being vegetarian for many years, I never worked up the nerve to try the Tofurkey. I will say that the Quorn turkey roast was (to my vegetarian tastes) quite good, though and had a surprisingly realistic (to my vegetarian sensibilities) texture.
Whatever vegetarian options come with the catered turkey at work this year will be my Thanksgiving meal during an 11-hour shift.
My nuclear family had our own tradition while I was growing up, after about age 9 for me. November was full of bad memories for my mom, so we decided traditional Thanksgiving would just make things hard for her (since she would have to be the primary cook) and we should do something different.
So began the Steak and Lobster Tradition that we held for about 25 years. Nuclear family went out for surf & turf, and sometimes other (mom’s side) family would be visiting for the holiday and we would treat them, too. Afterward, we would pop over to the extended family (dad’s side) gathering for dessert. Then I moved to the city, and got a job where I worked nearly all the holidays, and the parents bought a second home where they decided it would be nice to spend Thanksgiving, and now we don’t do Thanksgiving any more.
I like a nice meal but doesn’t have to be turkey. For our first family Thanksgiving in America we’re not going to do a turkey because we have to buy all sorts of turkey baking crap and my family doesn’t like turkey that much. China Wife is thinking of a killer Bouillabaisse since we live near the coast. We’ll probably have a mess of oysters on the half shell too. I’ll bake some bread and chocolate chip cookies. I’m sure there will be more.
During my decade of being a vegetarian, I wasn’t real big on the “imitation meat” stuff. Thing was, I didn’t really want to have the taste and feel of meat. I like some of the above Italian or mexican suggestions. Hell, we might do Italian instead…
We’re having the usual but two years ago my dad also grilled a steak for my cousin’s wife, since she doesn’t like turkey. (No, she didn’t ask him to, he just decided to do it on his own.)
My dad and I were watching Paula Deen earlier this evening. She was making a turducken, along with sweet potato balls (made with brown sugar, white sugar, AND marshmallows. TONS of brown sugar), and fried cream corn. Said fried corn was fried in bacon grease AND butter. Ugh.
Is turducken any good?
We’re having our second annual “Piesgiving.” Last year, it included Turkey pot pie, veggie pot pie, little quiches, etc. This year, we’re having an Indian twist, so the main item will be turkey samosas and sweet potato samosas. (We figure the samosas are pie-like enough.)
We had Thanksgiving last week (my in-laws celebrate it, but were not going to be in town, so we moved it up a week)
I made individual Beef Wellingtons with gravy & veg, and individual Berry Pavlovas for dessert.
Spiral sliced ham. Do not like turkey. I’ll skip it all to go to the house that has king crab legs, however.
Last year I celebrated Thanksgiving at my friend Mardi’s house. They served:
A deep-fried turkey
A roast turkey
A ham
Roast venison (that they had hunted)
A goose (not sure if it was one they had shot)
There were twenty-some people there, and an astonishing array of other foods. I’ve lost quite a bit of weight on a low-carb diet, but I still lust after pumpkin pie.
The worst Thanksgiving meal I have ever had, nay the worst single meal I have ever had, was a vegetarian one. The centerpiece dish was a “barley loaf”. There is an awful tendency of some vegetarians/vegans to not simply eliminate meat from their diets, but to replace it with things that just were not meant to be eaten. Barley is a useful thing when substantially changed - baking into bread, or turned into drink. But eaten by it’s self, roasted? Too awful for words.