Roundtable Discussion: Thanksgiving Edition

Thanksgiving is the perfect excuse to eat and eat and eat and drink and eat some more. So we tasked our writers to share their favorite component of the Thanksgiving meal, as well as what they’ll be drinking at dinner this year!

Lindsay- I absolutely love green bean casserole! I’m actually making it this year just so I can have some. I have no idea what I’ll be drinking at Thanksgiving this year. I’m sure there will be some sort of beer to drink, but my aunt and uncle live in the heart of Michigan wine country, so that will probably be the beverage of choice.

Mike Z- It might be boring but I like turkey. I especially like the day after when you can make turkey sandwiches.
As for beer my mom works for MillerCoors so we always have some newer beer that the company is releasing. This year it’s called Third Shift. It hasn’t been released in markets here in Illinois not sure about anywhere else in the country. I tried it at their brewery last week and it was very good. We will also have leinenkugel…always have leinenkugel.

Charlie- I like to think of my Thanksgiving plate as one dish. The ingredients, turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, may all be placed on the dish separately, but once unified with gravy, blend into a homogenous blob of holiday awesome. If i’m feeling kinky, I may use a little bit of cranberry sauce too. Usually I’d drink wine with Thanksgiving, but since I’m living in Egypt, I’ll certainly be drinking the local beer, Stella. It tastes like Budweiser with a roll of pennies in it.

Scott- Pumpkin Pie, every variation available. That’s my go-to Thanksgiving food. My mom also makes a killer broccoli, cheese and rice dish, and that’s probably my favorite item at dinner. I’ll be spending Thanksgiving with my in-laws for the first time this year, and they don’t really drink too often. However, my wife and I have been trying to start a tradition of bringing several bombers otherwise not available in Kentucky for an impromptu tasting session with her family. It’s become kind of popular, and I now know the limits of what they are willing to drink. Note to self: do not bring sours.

Bethany- Sweet potato pie!! No contest. My great grandma had her “famous” recipe and has passed it down. I’ll be spending Thanksgiving with a family in Colorado Springs and I’m pretty sure they’ll be drinking wine or champagne. But we’ll see. Happy Thanksgiving, y’all 🙂

Nik- The cornucopia of pleasures that is turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cornbread and cranberry sauce, all stirred together in one giant blob of goodness on my plate. “Thanksgiving Glop,” as the natives called it. Maybe. As for drink, my grandfather and I make glögg, a Scandinavian mulled wine. The recipe has been passed down the family, and an assortment of red wine, brandy, sherry, cinnamon, orange, almond, and cloves make it the best warmed drink in the world. No contest!

Coit- My family is a LARGE Italian family from the east coast. While much of the family still resides in New York, where my grandparents immigrated and lived until they passed a few years ago, some family members (my fam included) have moved to other locales around the U.S. So in order to stay in touch during the holidays the fam from coast to coast does what’s known as a “Call Out”. This is basically where you get a phone call at any point during the holiday from a family member and if you take the call, you take a shot…of tequila. Many “Happy Thanksgivings” are traded as toasts for the shot, and much catching up is done with the aide of a bit of social lubricant. There is no time constraint or limit to the amount of calls you can receive in a day. Call Outs typically come during the preparation of Thanksgiving dinner which means for those of us west of the Mississippi, shit gets real….real fast. Additionally, like most Italians I know, my family has a deviant streak and like I said, most live on the east coast. It’s not atypical to be awoken at 7am on Thanksgiving morning to a shot thrust into my half awake consciousness, or to have to put one Call Out on hold while taking another on the other line. The tradition ends when the person proposing the Call Out asks the person they just called “Who the hell is this!?” Typically around 1am. So I will be drinking tequila on Thanksgiving….LOTS AND LOTS of tequila.

My favorite dish on Thanksgiving is a bit convoluted, usually because my mind itself is convoluted from all the Call Outs. So I guess that means my favorite dish is the one the quenches my drunk-chies. Last year it was yams…I think… This year? Who knows!

Phil- I’m definitely a huge fan of good gravy. Its brings everything else on the plate together. My mom still gives me a hard time about needing to have gravy. There was one year in which she didn’t make any and I was so upset. The next year when I was with her getting groceries for Thanksgiving, I told the story to the guy running the register. He asked my mom if he should call child protective services. My mom buckled over in half laughing so hard. Needless to say there was gravy at every Thanksgiving there after. In the beverage department I either prefer a nice peaty scotch or margaritas served out of a watering can. I have had some fun Thanksgivings!

Nate- I’m going to go ahead and say I love canned cranberry sauce. Seriously, that gelatinous cylinder of awesomeness is what makes Thanksgiving. You can have your homemade cranberries. Plus, the canned stuff slices SO WELL and makes a MEAN THANKSGIVING SANDWICH. We’re talking mashed potatoes, stuffing, turkey, cranberry, and (perhaps) a little gravy. So good. So awesome. BRING ME THURSDAY.

Vic- My grandmother, on my dad’s side of the family, made this awesome side dish. My cousins and I called it noodles, but I don’t think there is an official name for it. The dish is fresh made pasta noodles dried for a day or 2, them simmered all day in chicken broth. Turkey drippings are added right before serving. I know fresh pasta should only be cooked for a short time, but this stuff is AMAZING! The broth becomes this thick gravy like substance. It is even better the next day with chopped turkey.

Chris K- My Uncle made a Turducken (de-boned chicken stuffed into a de-boned duck, which is in turn stuffed into a de-boned turkey) once which was pretty cool, but when it comes to Thanksgiving – I prefer some simple cornbread. If I’m feeling adventurous, I put a piece of cornbread on top of mashed potatoes with some noodles on top and then I drown that bad boy in some gravy (I’ve bent a few paper throw-away plates in my day with that concoction). As far as drinking goes, my family isn’t picky – so whatever is available gets consumed. The rest is all a blur of football and tryptophan induced naps.