Salon post: November 16

[jenett]

Hello!


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Topic of the week
People who live in the United States: US Thanksgiving is coming up. Do you have plans? Traditions you like? Things that are traditional you wish would stop? Need a place to vent about complicated family expectations?

People not in the US and people for whom US Thanksgiving is not a thing: I'd love to know about your favourite food-centered traditions. What's tasty? What's worth the effort? What isn't?

What I've been up to
Writing words for NaNo, and dealing with heating issues (too much heat, not too little) in my apartment, that mean I am severely underslept this week.


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Comments

[jenett]

So, I am born and raised in the US, but to one British parent and one grew-up-in-the-UK parent, and Thanksgiving is totally not a family tradition in my family. We did the fussy stuff for Christmas, including goose and Christmas pudding and all that.

(When I was growing up, my father would take the Thanksgiving break and go do lectures and performances in Canada, for obvious scheduling reasons, so he wasn't even home.)

I usually view it as "Yay, five days when I can sleep in, catch up on things, make headway on projects, and if I end up invited to have tasty food somewhere, yay."

In 2015, that was the week I was in London, which was actually really nice timing. Not busy with tourists, the weather was mostly perfectly reasonable. Last year, I went out to visit good friends of one of my best friends in upstate New York and had a blast (and a really great beef roast and Yorkshire pudding...) and we may do that again some year soon but not this one.

This year, I'm going to local friends for food and hanging out. And then writing more words for NaNo.

[julian]

We (for the past few years) have done Thanksgiving at my mother-in-law's place, and Christmas at my parents' place. Generally both are turkey and various fixings. This involves my nuclear family, and various in-laws who have various sorts of tensions with each other, but not me, so I occasionally observe some difficulties but have none myself.

This year, though, because my sister-in-law was due *on* Thanksgiving, her mom said "Eff that" and had a (slightly scaled down) harvesty sort of dinner a few weeks ahead of time, with really good pot-roasty meat, absolutely amazing roasted carrots, and a few other things. (Then due to pre-eclamptic problems, my s-i-l had the kid on Veteran's Day, but it still worked out anyway.)

We grew up with a 4 person nuclear family Thanksgiving, and then had a few years in my 20s where my folks and I went down to North Carolina (near Asheville) to join my brother at his school's 100-person-or-so-Thanksgiving. Then we went back to 4 person nuclear, and I eventually had a few years where I went to my partner's uncle's Thanksgiving, where he and his wife invited half of the world into their not-too-small Cambridge apartment. Even then I was feeling as if the holiday was too much about food and more particularly the over-eating of it, and I took a year or so after that stopped to not do Thanksgiving at all and see if I could figure out how to make that work better for me and make it into an actual moment for, if not gratitude, at least happiness, and I've had a better time since then.

Since we've already done Thanksgiving, I'd been pondering the idea of volunteering for Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly, which I did a bit of in middle school, but it seems they've already got enough Boston volunteers, per their website. I'll poke at a few other options later.

[jazzyjj]

My parents are flying to Arizona this morning for a funeral. A cousin of my mother's had a massive stroke a couple weeks ago, and wasn't expected to recover. None of us really knew her that well. She and my mom grew up together and stuff, but then they kinda drifted apart. But it's still sad. They're coming back on Sunday. She called me yesterday just to check in, because I had called earlier in the day and talked to a sister of mine.





My neighbor across the hall is leaving on Monday for Ohio, so I'll actually be able to get a lot more done. Not that he's a bad person, but I think we are in need of a break from each other now and again. I'm leaving for my parents' place on Wednesday. Not exactly sure what we're doing for the big day, but my sister and her husband are coming down from Milwaukee with the kids. Hopefully his mom will be in attendance as well. Our families get along great. Unfortunately his dad passed away not long after he and my sister tied the knot. But his dad was a good guy too. I'm also going to work with a sister a bit more on her Mac. She is also a screen reader user, but hasn't had near the amount of computer experience as her brothers.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanksgiving is really important to my mother and my husband. The Dyer-Bennet food traditions loom very large this time of year. My mom is mostly interested in making sure that we get the raw cranberry orange relish and lots of mashed potatoes and gravy, so she deals with those.

David is all about the chestnut stuffing both in the turkey and lots of extra in pans in the oven. He makes a separate batch of vegan stuffing for Raphael and me and any other vegetarians who may be around.

My mother is very pleased that he will prepare the turkey, because if she has to, she can't eat it.

I am in charge of desserts (vegan pumpkin pie, mince pie, and something for people who don't like mince and are allergic to pumpkin -- this year that is probably apple crisp, though I might relapse upon gingerbread) and of making the non-turkey protein for myself and any other vegetarians or pescatarians around. It's usually salmon. There is only a small interest in things like vegetables among most of the party, but I typically roast a bunch of them. Eric and I require them, Lydy likes them, David will eat some and praise them and my mother will eat some if they are not highly seasoned.

We used to have Thanksgiving at my mom's, but since she also hosts Christmas every year since David's mother stepped down from that position, once we had finally managed to do a partial remodel of the downstairs kitchen and got a decent stove, we have hosted Thanksgiving. It's been quite large in recent years, with us and partners and friends and their grown children and my youngest brother coincidentally being in town because his band was touring the Midwest. This year it's just immediate partners and family, which is actually kind of a relief, though a larger one again in a year or two would be fine by me.

P.

[pameladean]

Aaaand that was me, forgetting I wasn't logged in.
P.

[jjhunter]

Having grown up in the USA, Thanksgiving is a fixture for me, though it's varied considerably over the years. As a kid, typically nuclear family + some extended family, with a rotation of who exactly hosts on a given year (also in rotation with Christmas and Easter hosting). At the housing co-operative in college, we had 'Thanksoween', a vaguely spooky feast of awesome where we celebrated our gratitude for each other and for the community we build together. (This was conveniently timed so those who left for actual Thanksgiving could still participate, and those who stayed would have several days' of leftovers and no real need to cook unless they delighted in doing so.)

Since then, I've bounced around doing Thanksgiving with friends (mine, my parents', etc.) and nuclear family visiting extended family hosting.

This year will be a little strange- my mother just left the country for a multi-month trip, having finally retired, and my brother and his girlfriend are firmly ensconced on the West Coast, so it's just my dad and I trekking out to a series of adventures: AM soccer with his friends, midday Thanksgiving decadence at the cousins' place out in the suburbs (but at least I'll get to see cousin B-, who's a shiny new freshman in college this year!), and then back to the city for late evening deserts and drinks with more friends of my parents, one of whom is my former boss/mentor - hoping to see a few old work colleagues there was well.

Oh! and this isn't even mentioning the pre-Thanksgiving friend events - impromptu Thanksgiving potluck lunch with the literary lunch crew at work for Monday lunch; Monday evening Friendsgiving, also a potluck (thinking of doing a neat Ottolenghi recipe for carrots & peas, which sounds weirdly compelling); Wednesday department bday part for like 5 different people with November/early Dec. birthdays; Wednesday evening baking the sweet potato and sage gratin (also Ottolenghi) that I plan to bring to formal Thanksgiving.

Having gotten a single sweet potato weighing 4+lb in my CSA share this week, I'm feeling pretty pleased with my plotted triage so far.

Stutli plans to be gloriously anti-social all Thanksgiving day, sounds like; I will do my housemate duty and bring home All the Leftovers I can lay my grubby paws on to share with her. :D

[raynedanser]

We have plans. Because of my food allergies, I always cook a dinner for the three of us (and whomever may turn up is welcome), plus we're dog sitting for some friends. After, we'll likely end up at my mother-in-law's for a bit.

[silveradept]

I'm hosting this year, which is a bit of a lot of "eeep" because that means I'm going to have to figure out how to cook the bird correctly and do all of those things that I appreciate others having done, and that will make me super nervous about getting out done correctly.

The biscuits that I want are much less of an issue, and some of the guests are bringing food for the table, which is a lovely offer and much appreciated. I don't know that I have a big enough table to seat everyone around, but it will do as a table to hold all the food on, and that will be the best thing.

So a little supply running and making sure I leave myself enough time for everything to thaw and cook. Because I might be the person in my household with enough spoons to actually do the thing.