Category Archives: Thanksgiving

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The Turkey Brief

Five Easy Sides
for Thanksgiving

How come America’s most beloved holiday became such a minefield of discord and intra-family carnage? No idea. But there’re still ways to prevent that carved bird from becoming airborne, thrown across the dinner table by a disaffected relative.
Thanksgiving did become synonym to a hard time to be had by all. It now even includes its own set of preppy tips, so to avoid confrontations and visits to the E.R. They vary but have one topic in common: do not talk about politics. Or religion. Or sex. Or Turkey.
Or something else, for often it’s the way the conversation is conducted, never mind its content, what may lead to the breakup of many a relationship. Of course, foul language and inappropriate use of utensils can also be accountable for spilled blood.
Whether on the account of a heated exchange over a swampy-orange stink bomb set off in DC two years ago, particularly pungent today, or for smearing our culinary and/or dietary whims on everybody’s faces, things have a way to heat up like ovens on Thursdays like these.
Tales of communal pilgrims are no longer the adult option; we’ve already ruined this holiday. But fact is, Thanksgiving‘s the utmost family holiday in the U.S., screams and sugar rushes et al. Taken as such, it’s not that we’re navigating unfamiliar territory here. Have a Roving One.

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Read Also:
* No, Thanks
* A Nation of Thanks
* Cold Turkey

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No, Thanks


Uh-Oh. I Think I’ve Burned
the Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie

Too late to start a new one now. I thought I’d followed the directions of the recipe. Taste is what matters, right? Not really. It looks good in the picture but the real thing is considerably darker. What a fiasco. I should’ve known better but not even a Beatles song will help me now.
I’ll tell them it fell on the floor. No, gas power was shut off on my block. Maybe I’ll Trump them: ‘I never said I was bringing a pie.’ I could pick one up at the corner deli but what if they’re all gone? No, I’ll say I gave it away to a Soup Kitchen. That’ll make me look real good.
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Read Also:
* A Nation of Thanks
* Cold Turkey
* Meatless Time

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A Nation of Thanks


When William Burroughs
Snarled Thanksgiving Grace

He was in fine form on that purposely grainy video, giving thanks for the Klu Klux Klan and ‘a country where nobody is allowed to mind his own business.’ Bill Burroughs would live another decade before leaving us, but no one said grace in quite the same way.
3o years later, we’re bitter as ever, and he’d surely give us no thanks for the radical rightward turn we’ve allowed our political winds to take. We miss his snarl but he’s the one who would’ve been hurt by the cruel world we’ve been tending to since he’s left.
Today, as we digest millions of murdered birds, down our ‘wholesome American guts,’ and some heil a new white chief of the nation, we’ll borrow Burroughs‘ growl, while sewers burst open, and out come pouring ravenous rats. The many heroes who signed off this year make us moan and grieve.
Few will sharpen knives, check their ammo, thank their good fortune. Hunting season will start earlier this time. But most will avert their kids’ gaze, and try a thousand ways of telling them again that life’s unfairness shouldn’t be the point. But now they know there’s no Santa.
Yet, thanks to those with the steady gait and the flexed calfs, who bend but not break. The ‘indians, who provide a modicum of challenge and danger,’ fighting for water on behalf of all Americans who forgot them, at the Dakota Access Pipeline standoff. They’re are our natural gifts.
Yes, thanks for the grandmothers, the multi-linguals, the mixed races, the black lives that’ll still matter once this all pass, because it must and will. Thanks for the gender fluid, and for the targeted whistleblowers; they’ll deliver our message to the future.
Surely, Bill, ‘thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of the human dreams.’ But also for the little bloodletting with which we clean our wounds, and all the joy of playing Job when it comes our turn. Light comes only from pitch black.
Thanks for the thanks I’ll be forever indebted to give, to those I have yet to meet. And thanks for partying like it’s 1927, when the first balloon to fly at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was Felix the Cat. Two years later, many sharks finally had their day of reckoning.
We’ll fall into a turkey stupor for now but we’ll come back as we always do. By the way, something in the pumpkin pie didn’t agree with my stomach. Happy Thanks & Giving Day.
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Read Also:
* Thanksgivukkah
* Meatless Time
* Cold Turkey 

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Cold Turkey

A Bird With Multiple Names, Two
Countries & Some Holiday Mash

This was supposed to be the definitive post on why turkeys are called turkeys, what they have to do with Turkey and Peru, and why would anyone care about it.
Instead, it turned out to be just another holiday stupor, a tipsy search on the Internet and a million half-funny comments on why no one seems to have a clear idea.
So, risking making the article almost shorter than its headline, let’s just cover the highlights, while we check the oven and get properly loaded before the guests have parked at the curb.
Americans (including William Burroughs) have held Thanksgiving very dear to their hearts because the holiday is based on a historical folktale and, to this day, it’s still a family gathering by excellence in ways religious dates could never be.
Granted, at this point in time, it’s no longer all about the turkey. Aunts have various dietary needs. Some care only for the sweet potatoes and cranberry jam. And children became vegan and will have their own Tofurkey.
The cooking frenzy that used to animate families of yore have since lost much of its luster with the advent of live football and the Macy’s Parade on TV.
Besides, arguments usually ensue even before all relatives have arrived (more)
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Read Also:
* Meatless Time
* It’s Your Bird’s Day

Continue reading →

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It’s Your Bird’s Day


Thank Goodness, We
Could Use the Excuse

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Thanksgivukkah

A Holiday Combo
& a Smashed Comet

It happened before and, if you’re not in a hurry, it’ll happen again. Good luck with that, though. And good luck with one of the most loaded of the American holidays, both celebrated and vilified for its special brand of family time, the kind that often verges on murder.
Thanksgiving, which after Thursday, will only conflate with Hanukka again in the year 79811, is being called Thanksgivukkah this time around, in what Wikipedia insists is a portmanteau but that’s not for reasons we’re sure our illustrious readership knows so well.
As if eating overfed, extra-hormone stuffed, hardly a bird at this point at all, turkey were not enough, we’re already feeling lazy and not up to the task to add yet another exquisite commentary to the joyous occasion (for some, naturally, not the turkeys).
After some three years, we did accumulate a nice share of posts on the subject, which we’ll proceed to lay on your plate, as you try to ignore the grand debate on healthcare and how ‘that Kenyan is ruining this country,’ while at the same time trying not to call attention to your text messaging.
Feel free to jump in with congratulatory asides and additional servings of praise for our foresight, which will only require a few tweaks, perhaps a dollop of the salsa du jour for flavor, and a few minutes in the microwave. Just like the leftovers you’re sentenced to have for the next several days.
For there’s little about this holiday that’s new and fresh, and this year particularly, the pickings are indeed slim. You have your White House sanctioned turkey pardons, the appalling conditions consumer-bound poultry is handled in this country and the need to raise them more humanely, and the multitude of well-intentioned souls who decide to go vegan at this time of the year out of sheer disgust.
But there’s something else going on, that may be important for astrophysics and scientists: a comet is about to zip by, head and tail, the sun. ISON, as it’s known, has been so far a disappointment all on its own, though. Earlier reports that it’d offer a stunning sky show have been greatly downgraded since.
Thus there’s little hope for you but to dive yourself among your family and friends, and hey, it doesn’t have to be a drag. In fact, you should Continue reading →

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Meatless Time

McCartney, Peta Ask:
Give Turkey a Chance

Not to soy anybody’s holiday plans, or to imply that turkeys are an endangered species, the former Beatle Paul may have a point. It’s been a while since the symbolism of eating the bird on Thanksgiving has faded away, along with the notion of a relaxing family day.
It may be time to spare the 45 million turkeys expected to be slaughtered for the traditional Thursday, and start taking another look at the meaning of the having to kill an animal to celebrate our sense of contrition. Specially after 11 years of ongoing war and economic strife.
Of course, we don’t need a Brit, however gifted or well intentioned he may be, to tell us how to mark a date so suffused with our national pride and self-congratulatory feelings. Besides, having a single food item makes everything all the more practical. But what does the poor avian have to do with anything?
In fact, even though that the legend of the first Thanksgiving does make it for a nice, heart-warming story, most of everything about it has either faded away, or simply doesn’t make much sense. In fact, the Continue reading →

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Cold Turkey

A Bird With Multiple Names, Two
Countries & Some Holiday Mash

This was supposed to be the definitive post on why turkeys are called turkeys, what they have to do with Turkey and Peru, and why would anyone care about it.
Instead, it turned out to be just another holiday stupor, a tipsy search on the Internet and a million half-funny comments on why no one seems to have a clear idea.
So, risking making the article almost shorter than its headline, let’s just cover the highlights, while we check the oven and get properly loaded before the guests have parked at the curb.
Americans (including William Burroughs) hold Thanksgiving very dear to their hearts because the holiday is based on a historical folktale and, to this day, it’s still a family gathering by excellence in ways religious dates could never be.
Granted, at this point in time, it’s no longer all about the turkey. Aunts have various dietary needs. Some care only for the sweet potatoes and cranberry jam. And children became vegan and will have their own Tofurkey.
The cooking frenzy that used to animate families of yore have since lost Continue reading →