The Thanksgiving Blog!

What's not to like about Thanksgiving? Seriously. Well, let's preface that with, if you hate your family, Thanksgiving might be the worst day of the year for you. But for us with non-dysfunctional families, Thanksgiving is awesome. Of course the reason why Thanksgiving is awesome is because of the food, and that's primarily what we'll concentrate on today.

Turkey: Turkey is the Thanksgiving staple. Other than a turkey sandwich now and then do you ever even eat turkey during the rest of the year? But we all know deli meat turkey is decidedly NOT oven-roasted turkey. Turkey itself is nothing special really, it's somewhat moist unless Cousin Eddie from Vacation's Wife is cooking it, then you might need a little extra gravy. The skin is pretty much the only tasty part because that's where most of the seasoning ends up, unless you ordered "The Flavor Injector" from the makers of the Showtime Rotisserie BBQ. But simply put, turkey pretty much tastes exactly like chicken and perhaps is even a little less tasty. If you put a slice of turkey in front of someone on any day other than Thanksgiving, they'd say this is some good chicken. If you loaded a serving dish with slices of chicken and passed it around your family's table, they'd all be giving you kudos on what a great job you did with the turkey. The meat itself doesn't contain the real flavor you crave, no my friends that comes from the gravy. So it is our humble opinion that it is not turkey that makes the thanksgiving feast great, no sir. It is its wonderfully fattening brown friend, gravy.

Gravy: Gravy makes or breaks Thanksgiving. It's what you douse your otherwise flavorless turkey in, it's what you dip your bread in, you pour it on your mashed potatoes and you can even throw some on top of your apple pie if you get real adventuress. But, no matter what you use it for, if the gravy is sub par, that's the direction the day is heading. In other words, as the gravy goes, so goes your meal. For a good gravy it needs to be like Oprah, thick and dark, but not too thick or too dark. You don't want it running all over your plate just you just poured soup on your turkey, but you don't want to be scooping it out with a spoon either. The consistency is key. Some people like lumps in the gravy, but that just means you cooked it wrong.

Potatoes: Mash em, boil 'em, it doesn't matter. Potatoes in general are awesome. No wonder Ireland was crippled by the potato famine, you can have potatoes anytime, anyway and they're delicious with just about any sauce. BBQ, Ketchup, Salsa (chips), Sour Creme, Gravy, Ranch... how awesome.

Stuffing: I appreciate the efforts of the patrons who make their own home made stuffing, but the thought of stuffing should start and end at StoveTop. StoveTop stuffing is perfect. Its bursting with flavor, the chunks are the perfect size, you can make it in about 5 minutes and you can even snack on it while your waiting for the water to boil (its even better than croutons).

Cranberry sauce: Much like stuffing the "fake" cranberry sauce is so much better than the real stuff. I'll take that can with the white rapper any day over lumpy jelly with actual cranberries in it, ugh. There's nothing more satisfying than getting the cranberry "sauce" out from that can in one effort. The ridges in that are formed in that gelatin are just straight up classy. People try to class it up by putting it in a nice dish, but we all know what's going on. You can slice it, dice it, whatever, but your efforts of making it look cool are wasted so Accept it. And as mentioned before, no matter what you do, you're never topping the can taste.

Also something to think about: When the hell else do you ever eat Cranberry Sauce? The sales from cranberry sauce in a can must solely ride on the month of November.

Squash/Sweet potato: Squash is awesome. When prepared with some delicious brown sugar or even maple syrup infused, it's like having dessert on your T-Give (that's the cool way for saying Thanksgiving) plate. Sweet potato is kind of the same deal. It's orange, it's mashed, and it too is sweet and delicious.

Peas/Carrots: Forest Gump and Jen-nay goes together like peas and carrots, and peas and carrots go together good on your plate. They are essential vegetables on the table, especially when the carrots have some brown sugar on them (BTW, we're all about brown sugar, but not Brown Sugar the horrible movie). The vegetable that would make sense as a Thanksgiving dish that never makes it to the table, in our house at least is corn on the cob. Thanksgiving is supposed to pay homage to the meal between the pilgrims and Indians (before the pilgrims took all the Indian's land) and you know they were noshing on some corn on the cob back then, so why don't we have it today? Another thing we don't have at today's Thanksgiving tables? Semi-naked Indians. Though I think that's something we all can be thankful for.

Pies: As if you didn't eat enough turkey and "fixins" you wake up from your triptafan-induced coma just in time for pie. Pies are the pinnacle of deserts. You can throw anything into a pie and it'll be delicious, well except mince meat (doesn't it sound like some type of rat meat). Why waste a pie by filling it with meat? (Though shepherd's pie is exception to the rule, but that's not really a T-Give deal) You already had enough meat during dinner, its time for the sweets. Throw some apples, or pumpkin, or berries or ice cream in that pie crust and you got yourself a great capper to an awesome day of the 4 F's- Fun, Feasting, Family and Fuck I'm getting fat. Actually, that's five F's.

Thanksgiving Traditions:

Seating Arrangements - You might come from a smaller family where everyone can sit around one table and enjoy the meal together, but I (Pat) come from a big family where we not only have a secondary table, but we have the "kiddie table" in which we're annexed into another room, completely out of the way. The kiddie table is created in the beginning because there isn't room at the "Adults" table for all of the kids to fit, well its fine when your little, you don't wanna sit with the boring adults anyways. Eventually the one or two oldest cousins get promoted to the adult table when they reach a certain age and like a minor league manager, you're sad to see your guy go, but your happy for them and their big promotion, they finally made it to the big show. But when you finally get to the age where you saw your cousins get promoted and your sitting at your locker waiting for the call up, it never comes, you wait around a few years and your still stuck with the little kids, playing baby sitter now, you wait a few more years and before you know it your past your prime, you're downing beers telling the young ones how you coulda been something, you coulda been a real contributor, if you had just gotten your chance. You claim that the parents didn't know what they were doing, that it was indeed THEIR fault you didn't make it to the Big Tables. Well, perhaps you just got dished some cold hard truth my friend. Perhaps it was in fact YOU that was at fault. Where your cousins started talking about politics, economy, and work, you were still talking about video games, sports, and TV. You didn't step up your game to that level and you stayed in the farm system at AAA kiddie table. But don't fret, son. Work on a politics curve ball and start placing your office comments better and mix in some economy heat. Soon you'll be up in the majors.

Football - Between all of the food and naps we squeeze in some pig skin. The thing I never understood about Thanksgiving football is why do the Cowboys and Lions play every Thanksgiving? I understand the Cowboys, other than the Patiots, they are a true American sounding team name, but the Lions? Why not the Redskins? Why not have the Patriots take on the Redskins in a little old school Thanksgiving match up on a field at Plymoth Rock? Aside from that the Lions have been awful lately which brings up a lot of complaints about having to watch them get their turkeys stuffed every thanksgiving. Well as glass half full type of guys look at it like this, the game is over by the end of the first quarter or halftime at least, so its a perfect opportunity to squeeze in a nap.

But why the Lions and Cowboys?: According to one website, in 1934 the teams played on Thanksgiving, and they have played on ever T-Give day ever since. But, in 1934 there were only 11 teams, and none of them were the Patriots (who were the Boston Redskins) and none from the nation's capital and more surprisingly the Cowboys were not created until 1960, so why these two teams play I'll never know. If you want my (John's) guess: Cowboys are "America's Team" and Detroit is the home to three major American Automakers, Ford, GM, and Chrysler, and really, like the Lions and American cars in general, what's more American than something doing well right now?

Naps - Naps are as integral to turkey day as the turkey its self. This is in fact the one holiday where not only are naps acceptable, they're expected. They've become such a part of thanksgiving that you can't imagine anything different, but if you really take a step back and think about it, its an odd thing. When else would you head over to your aunts house, eat a ton of food and follow that up by walking over to the couch, unbuttoning the button on your pants and zonking out for a good hour, only to wake up to the smell of sweet pies? Well, never.

Attire - Some families are all about the nice apparel. That's well in good. But the most important thing is that you're comfortable and have something loose fitting. There's no way you're going to be able to survive the day in some tight slacks. No way, no how. Imagine this: think about how much food you pour on the plate. Now subtract the weight of the plate from this equation. You're putting in POUNDS of food. Serious heft is to be added to the waistline in one afternoon, because you know you're absolutely starving yourself for the feast. By the time the late afternoon comes and you have been smelling all that business cooking all day, it's like you haven't seen food in weeks. That's where the loose pants come in. The last thing you want to have is tightness and discomfort on the waistband. The key to this is having some of those fancy Dockers pants that have elastic on the inside so they give a little bit.

Finally from all of us at "Pat&John on..." well, okay, from Pat and John, have a Happy Thanksgiving and give thanks for health and happiness!