Thanksgiving Weirdness!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I don't think it's too weird, and now that I think about it, it reminds me of me.

I like turkey in general, and I like the 'process' of preparing/cooking, but I'm not much on eating it after it's cooked. Or rather, I'm not a fan of sliced white meat, I guess, except making a sandwich: toasted bread (rye), lots of mayo, sliced whole meat turkey breast, salt, pepper, celery seed, lettuce...that # is good.

Then again, we usually oven roast it, we don't smoke or fry it.

a reply to: muzzleflash

I give thanks that Turkeys are only seventy nine cents a pound. It will cost about thirty eight bucks this year to fee the clan of nineteen. That doesn't include the cheesecake, kale salad, and shrimp dip and three bean salads others are bringing.

This time of year there are some decent sales, we stocked up on butter, it has been high lately so getting the LOL european style butter for under three dollars a pound is worth stocking up, butter freezes well. Lots of baking this time of year, we now have twenty pounds in the freezer. If the SHTF we need cookies. Got to have butter in stock to make stuff to go with the coffee in stock. Coffee has been up but we got four two pound cans of HB for 3.84 each to bring up our stock. We got twelve cans in rotation now. Buy low, use when high is our motto. It sure saves a lot of money that way.

There's truly no wrong way. It's the Thanksgiving that counts, friends and Family, the enjoyment of sharing.

I do have a preference to the deep fried turkey, mmmmm.

It's kind of funny, I was just thinking back to when I was a kid and I only liked white meat turkey. Now I'm the exact opposite, I don't care if I have any white meat at all...I want all dark meat (leg, thigh, etc). Tenderloin is good too.

Well...off to buy some lasagna I guess!

years ago I was working at a convenience store. along with store stuff I made subs.

a guy came in one year on Thanksgiving and ordered a cheesesteak sub. 'every year my wife makes that turkey and I hate that stuff'.
so yer not alone.

I love me some Popeyes Cajun Fried turkey. never had wild despite a certain amount of begging and pleading with hunter friends.

a reply to: muzzleflash

We do actually do roast, bone-in turkey breast throughout the year. There is an easy peasy recipe that always comes out super moist that we use for it. We do tend to save whole birds for the special occasions though.

We like to spatchcock ours and roast it with an herb rub up underneath the skin and butter basting on top of the skin. Skin comes out nice and crispy ... I could skip the bird for the skin itself, but the meat is really good.

Then we do turkey tetrazinni and make stock with the carcass.

Smoked turkey on the grill. Up at 5am, use old fashioned hardwood charcoal.
2pm pack up bird and side dishes a race across town for the main event "The Gravy Wars".

Gibblets in the gravy? Red wine or white or none or turkey stock?
OMG!! Your great grandma is now spinning in her grave!! GET OUT of the kitchen!!!

The battle lines are drawn with all sides of the family involved. We'll move on to fighting over orange sweet potatoes or the lighter white ones? Someone will have preemptively hidden the marshmallows to prevent another casserole abomination.

Spiking the stuffing with real cranberries is always a hoot cause you know who the "piggies" are, they're screaming an spitting thermonuclear hot cranberries across the room. (snickers) Wait till everyones seated first!!! Geeze!!!

More debate over homemade pie crust versus store bought altho strangely all the pies mysteriously disappear by the end of the night regardless? Stand by your convictions people!!! Drop that piece of apple pie if it bothers you that much you hypocrite!!!

Then it's cleanup time. If you aren't helping you're the one we're gossiping about, just remember that.

The anti-smokers will all be Tsk-Tsking as the rest of us head outside to the smoking lounge/canopy with chairs an freeze our hoo-haa's off complaining about who guzzled the new "fancy"wine some of us never got to try an playing "name that constellation".

Little bit of laser tag, tossing the lighted frisbee around an Mom will remember we're actually all STILL there an come out with a pot of coffee cause she wanted some an decided we do too! It's a tradition to remind her "so? where are the mugs for this coffee? Yep! back in the kitchen as she protests she DID NOT have too much wine an grouses she can't be expected to do everything for us ingrates.

BTW smoked turkey makes the BEST soup!!

Happy Preemptive Thanksgiving to y'all!!

Almost forgot. Rutabaga's. Gotta have 'em, not a holiday without the grousing that turnips are better than the 'baga however if they were someone would have bought some, ya think?

a reply to: ketsuko

How curious and peculiar.

These traditions are indeed rather perplexing and strange.

I'll never know what it's like to be a regular person.

I think what I'm missing isn't the weird traditional ceremony but instead the emotions and experiences of having a family to share these holidays with. That's what I really think sounds fun.

I'm so disconnected.
Don't take things for granted or mistreat your family.
Imagine having no one at all.

Imagine not even understanding turkey anymore that you got so disillusioned.

a reply to: muzzleflash

Oh, those are the ones for just the three of us.

Now if you want to talk about the whole family ...

It's stuffing. Why? Goes inside the bird. No one has ever died from it, so that's the way it's done. Everyone fights over the crispy bits of skin that come off. The giblets get distributed to everyone who likes 'em: aunt gets the tail, mom and sister fight over the gizzard, I get the heart, bro-in-law gets the neck.

No one ever bothers to formally carve it. It's just bits kind of sliced off on a platter - white on one side, dark on the other. Grave is always made with the drippings in the roasting pan.

There will always be a large platter of fresh raw veggies, at least two types of olives, green bean cassarole, corn and oyster cassarole, often two types of cranberry sauce. No one spends much time on sweet potatoes since my mom and my aunt don't like 'em and they're the captains of the ship. Always mashed potatoes and stuffing. Always rolls.

We start off with an appetizer table and wine. After nibbles there is a formal table setting with both dinner plate and bread plate. Everyone dresses for dinner - the tie rule has been recently relaxed.

After lunch the kids dress in play clothes and go run off their meal while the rest of us work on cleaning or watch football and catch up. Generally speaking, Thanksgiving and Easter are the two times we all get together in one place.

originally posted by: Plotus
There's truly no wrong way. It's the Thanksgiving that counts, friends and Family, the enjoyment of sharing.

Sometimes there is no way at all.

a reply to: muzzleflash

Hate to break it to you but you are a regular person.

Don't sweat missing out on anything. I've had just as many "phoney crappy" holiday dinners I was forced to attend.
We used to have the Festless Holiday here at home.

I'd make a couple of birds an stuffing an it was open house for people who were in recovery, didn't have family or were estranged an just wanted to "be somewhere". If they brought a little something to share, fine, if not that was fine too. Just happy everyone made the choice to stay sober.

We'd do a campfire up on the hill an I'd do warm cider an caramel corn while everyone chatted. We were the Anti-Holiday for a long time an it was GREAT!

You don't have to be alone.
Lots of places would appreciate your time an company if you decided to volunteer somewhere for the day?

a reply to: Caver78

I think the Millennials are going something like this. They have Friendsgiving or something like it. They get together, have a sort of potluck meal, and celebrate where they just enjoy each other's company and don't have to be alone.

a reply to: ketsuko

Yeah, the pressure some people fall victim too is ridiculous over the holidays.
This millennial thing sounds amazing!

No pressure, just having with friends.
Very cool!

a reply to: ElGoobero

No Thanksgiving is complete without ...

a reply to: ketsuko

I haven't read all the replies yet, but I must admit your (this) post is funny!

I'm sure some SJW's will rise to "Thanksgiving" is somehow offensive...so let's just all eat tofu chili and protest!!

LOL!!

a reply to: ketsuko

Indeed, the whole Thanksgiving thing is about family and friends, irrespective (not. irregardless) of what the dish served.

I could go on, but I would be remiss.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Yep, Thanksgiving day itself. Husband, son, and I will be home.

My mom's side of the family long ago determined that it was more important to get all of us together than it was to celebrate exactly on the day. So on Thanksgiving, everyone goes to all the other families we have connections to ... it just so happens that for us to travel to Tennessee is seldom financially practical.

Then, on the weekend after Thanksgiving, we all try to get together. It's been rough these past couple of years. One year, my aunt was doing chemo and radiation therapy so that sort of scuttled things, and then the year after, we had a freezing precip event that kept half the family from traveling up.