Thanksgiving meal plans

Thanks Al. I'll look for it.

Ha
 
haha said:
Thanks Al. I'll look for it.

Ha
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DaVinci syrups are carried here by Marshalls. Someone told me that TJ Maxx also carries them. So, perhaps you will see some there. My grocery store carries them but only the most common flavors (in the coffee creamer section of the store). The egg nog flavor isn't very common but I think I saw it once or twice at Marshall's.
 
We are headed to Savannah on Sunday so we'll be pigging out on Southern specialties on Thanksgiving .
 
Due to conflicts with inlaws' Thanksgiving, ours is Friday at 5:30 pm. I told DW this is a major problem because the Blackhawks play at 3 and the game won't be over by dinnertime. I ordered a fresh turkey, and brewed a nice autumn ale for a great turkey pairing. DW is getting the rest of the menu together - whatever that is.

I just hope I don't have to rinse the turkey in the lake like I did the Thanksgiving when we had a power outage. Scared the guests.
 
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DW and I and our children had Thanksgiving with her parents or my parents and other family members (we alternated) as long as they were able to prepare it. Our parents (and aunts and uncles) are all gone now.

Since then DW has always prepared a major Thanksgiving feast for our adult children and whoever else may show up. One year I thought I would give her a break and took her out to a fancy restaurant for Thanksgiving. She was depressed all day and said she would never do that again.

My job is to carve the turkey. I totally disassemble the warm bird. I make two platters. A people platter and a dog platter. The dogs get as much as the people. No bones, of course.
 
My wife and I always prepare a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for whatever family decides to come (it's down to about 6-8 folks now....used to be more, before several moved too far away). The menu includes charcoal-grilled turkey (after brining for 48 hours), garlic mashed potatoes w/ giblet gravy, baked winter squash with butter/real maple syrup, cranberry/orange/walnut chutney, pan-roasted green beans with slivered almonds, traditional bread stuffing. For dessert, we have traditional pumpkin pie and an apple/pear/cranberry/walnut tarte tatin (with real whipped cream).

I'm getting hungry just thinking about this meal, yum. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year.

RAE
 
This year is going to be fun. Well, they all are, but we're especially looking forward to this one. DW's nephew & his wife are struggling juggling two jobs, they work 10-12 hour days, two kids ages 2 and 6, upside down on their house, would like to move to a better school district, etc.

A while back nephew mentioned that he'd like to scrape together enough to buy his wife a camera for Christmas since theirs quit and they can't afford a replacement. Not having a camera with kids that age is not a good thing. So we got them a nice entry-level DSLR with two kit lenses that should be good for many years, a legit copy of Photoshop Elements 8, and a couple of books on the software. His and her parents are also making a contribution for the camera. All this in a huge box to be presented at Thanksgiving dinner in little town in southern PA as an early Christmas present. Hopefully neither one has an inkling this is happening.

We're bringing the mashed potatoes (made from scratch, of course) with at least one entire stick of butter since calories consumed on Thanksgiving don't count.

As usual, DW will spend so much time yakking she won't have time to eat much and will then complain on the way home that she's hungry. As usual, I will have absolutely no sympathy for her since as usual there will be more than enough food.
 
I plan to rouse myself very early on T-giving Day and drive through Pittsburgh to get out to my 95 year-old aunt's in time to put a capon in the oven for luncheon at 1:00. She hates turkey, and is getting this bird early next week from a farmer she knows. We will have sweet potatoes, green beans, wild rice salad (her specialty) and whatever her friends (two ladies who are superb bakers) bring for dessert. I am bringing a couple of bottles of Prosecco, myself and my dog. I will drive home on Friday afternoon unless Auntie me for anything else.
 
I don't know what it's going to be like. It will be the first year since 1975 that I will be able to spend it with family.
 
RAE said:
My wife and I always prepare a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for whatever family decides to come (it's down to about 6-8 folks now....used to be more, before several moved too far away). The menu includes charcoal-grilled turkey (after brining for 48 hours), garlic mashed potatoes w/ giblet gravy, baked winter squash with butter/real maple syrup, cranberry/orange/walnut chutney, pan-roasted green beans with slivered almonds, traditional bread stuffing. For dessert, we have traditional pumpkin pie and an apple/pear/cranberry/walnut tarte tatin (with real whipped cream).

I'm getting hungry just thinking about this meal, yum. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year.

RAE
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+1 but fewer people. It seems that every year when we have turkey at Thanksgiving that I find it really, really good and wonder why we don't have it more often (other than it is hard to find small birds at a reasonable price).
 
Being single and having no family in the US I will be spending Thanksgiving riding my bike, having a long shower and then drinking a few beers. I'll probably make a pumpkin pie as my nod to American tradition. My friends often say it's sad for me to spend Thanksgiving on my own, but the whole holiday is just a long weekend for me, it just doesn't have the same resonance as it does for people born in the USA.
 
nun said:
Being single and having no family in the US I will be spending Thanksgiving riding my bike, having a long shower and then drinking a few beers. I'll probably make a pumpkin pie as my nod to American tradition. My friends often say it's sad for me to spend Thanksgiving on my own, but the whole holiday is just a long weekend for me, it just doesn't have the same resonance as it does for people born in the USA.
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This reminds me of the time I was on business in the USA with my boss from the UK. While chatting with the waitress she asked where we were from and then how long we had been here.

My boss: "I arrived Sunday and am leaving Wednesday".

Waitress: "You must be very important to come all this way for 3 days"

My boss: "America shuts down on Thursday".

Waitress: "Of course, you are going home for Thanksgiving".

My boss: "We don't celebrate Thanksgiving in England"

Waitress: "You don't?"

My boss: "We have nothing to be thankful about"
 
Alan said:
This reminds me of the time I was on business in the USA with my boss from the UK. While chatting with the waitress she asked where we were from and then how long we had been here.

My boss: "I arrived Sunday and am leaving Wednesday".

Waitress: "You must be very important to come all this way for 3 days"

My boss: "America shuts down on Thursday".

Waitress: "Of course, you are going home for Thanksgiving".

My boss: "We don't celebrate Thanksgiving in England"

Waitress: "You don't?"

My boss: "We have nothing to be thankful about"
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:LOL::LOL:
 
Since I'm the "centrally located sister" I host Thanksgiving and Easter every year. I'll be making the turkey, potatoes and cranberries and everyone coming brings something else. The group ranges in age from 2 months to 80+ yrs. Since we all get along really well it's always a hoot. And there are always at least 3 people in the kitchen at any given time washing, drying and putting dishes away. (they know my kitchen almost as well as I do) Now I just have to figure out how many people are actually going to make it this yr so I know how much seating I need.
 
MichaelB said:
...a whole beef tenderloin on the grill with game sausages, roasted potatoes, green beans and some pies for dessert.
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That's sounds much like our Christmas dinner menu this year. My grilled tenderloin with an herb-garlic coating is simple to make and is popular with the family and guests.

Thanksgiving will be a repeat performance of deep-fried Cajun Turkey. It's a lot of work, involves being outdoors for hours, but I put it to a vote and that was the unanimous choice. Well, almost unanimous. I was hoping that this year I would get away with brining a bird and roasting indoors like normal people.

The rest of the menu is a spicy green-bean casserole, deviled eggs, potatoes, rolls and my favorite since childhood - canberry sauce Urban Dictionary: canberry
rescueme said:
Same as we do on any other "Hallmark Holiday". Go out and grab a meal, somewhere...
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That's a different opinion. I've always thought of Thanksgiving as being the exact opposite of a Hallmark Holiday.
Alan said:
This reminds me of the time I was on business in the USA with my boss from the UK.

Waitress: "Of course, you are going home for Thanksgiving".

My boss: "We don't celebrate Thanksgiving in England"

Waitress: "You don't?"

My boss: "We have nothing to be thankful about"
Click to expand...
How strange, but then I'm still trying to make sense of the way that the brits celebrate the 4th. of July. "British 4th" - YouTube
 
I will be not be with any family, for probably the first time (I can't remember if I was with family or not when I was 18) on Thanksgiving. DH is visiting with DD and her family in CA. DD's birthday is on the 23 and she wanted us to come visit them. I am planning on going to the Salvation Army and volunteering. I called them and they said to be there at 10:00 am. I had 5 different invites to go to other relatives' homes for Thanksgiving, but it just did not feel right, since DH is not here.

When my DD and her family moved to CA, we arrived in San Diego the day before Thanksgiving. They were staying in a furnished apt, until they could buy their house. Boxes were everywhere and it was quite a mess. The hotel across the street had a church group that had fixed Thanksgiving dinner for anyone who did not have a place to eat. They had posted signs in the apts where we were staying, since there were a lot of single military guys living there. My DH and SIL said they were going to go eat dinner there. I could see quite a few homeless looking types milling around waiting for the doors to open. I kept saying that I was not going to go eat there. I finally agreed to go and it was quite nice. There were tablecloths on the tables, flowers and "real plates and silverware". I was expecting paper products and was embarrassed that I was going to eat there. Remember, that I grew up very poor for part of my childhood, and never wanted to go back to feeling that way again. The people were very nice and we ate and then DH and I volunteered to help in any way we could. We cleaned up tables, waitressed for people that needed help, talked to people and generally enjoyed ourselves. It turned out to be such a good experience. I am hoping that volunteering at the Salvation Army will be another good experience.
 
Will be alone as usual: Turkey leg quarter(custom cut) wild rice, asparagus, champagne.
 
Will be joining my brother and his family and some friends and it is always a good time.
 
We'll be enjoying a great meal out here in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We will certainly be eating Thai food, but will be taking time to reflect on a great last year and all that we have to be thankful for in our lives.
 
One of the perks of my job is that the program I work on hosts a Thanksgiving dinner for our grantees the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, and our whole family is invited. So I get a great Thanksgiving spread without lifting a finger. And then I get the next day off (while the kids have to go to school) to relax. It is actually one of my favorite holidays because I don't get a day all to myself very often.

lhamo
 
Thanksgiving has been erratic for me in my lifetime. As a kid and later in the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s it was good. After I moved out of my parents' house, I was still close by and loved the smell of the turkey cooking in the oven when I first entered the small house. I would yell out, "I smell BIRD!" She was great at preparing the meal. Some years, we had more relatives over (maybe 10 people in all), other years we had it on the Friday because my mom ran in some half-marathons the day before Thanksgiving so she needed to rest up. Then she gave me a ton of her terrific turkey soup to take home along with some leftovers. Her birthday was November 27th so we also had a birthday party for her that weekend, sometimes on Thanksgiving itself. It was a fun time.

But after she died in October, 1995, Thanksgiving took a big downturn. Besides losing her, her birthday party, the meal, the turkey soup, and the leftovers, the following year my dad and I made the 4-hour trip to my brother's place where he and his wife lived. It went very badly for me and I did not go back there for 7 more years. I eventually returned and it has gone reasonably well. Not as good as before, but well enough to keep going. Since 2005 my ladyfriend has joined us for the weekend trip which has helped. The gathering is small, sometimes a few of my SIL's relatives joins us, sometimes not. Her pleasant mom always joins us, her dad is deceased, they have a young son, now 7, who joins us. I give the food a B+ which is good but not great. No turkey soup, either.

Good to get out of New York for a few days but good to get out of there a few days later, too. Then my ladyfriend and I have our own Thanksgiving dinner a week later. She makes turkey soup which is very good but not like my mom's ace soup. Still rates an A-minus along with the A-rated meal.
 
My daughter and her Brazilian husband invited me to their place for Thanksgiving this year. It will be quite an international Thanksgiving. I believe there will be about 10 people invited from several different countries.

This will be my daughter's first experience with a turkey and the trimmings. Seems like a girl's first turkey is a rite of passage into adulthood.:D Oh...my daughter is a vegan too!!
 
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