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Open Thread: Prepping for Thanksgiving Ahead

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[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

This coming Thursday is Thanksgiving. It seems both far too soon and yet forever since our last turkey day. We have all been through hell and back since the last time we gathered around the table with friends and family to give thanks while trying to restrain the urge to throttle that relative who is a pain in the ass every holiday.

This year my family will have a slightly smaller gathering. A couple family members work in healthcare and will be on duty. My kids didn’t experience this growing up as neither my spouse nor I have had careers obligating us to forfeit holidays with family. I do remember expecting my mom would not be home on one of the holidays, either Thanksgiving or Christmas, alternating each year because she was a nurse working second or third shift at the local hospital. Babies don’t stop coming and emergencies happen no matter what day it is, after all.

My youngest has been working in pharmaceutical manufacturing as I’ve mentioned in a previous holiday post; large chemical plants including pharma producers don’t shut down though they may reduce production. This year the youngest is working in a different field of pharma so they’ll be able to join us. But they now have a significant other who works for a hospital dispensing pharma products, and they won’t be able to join us.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Thanks to all the first responders who will be working this holiday, and those who support us invisibly by keeping things running in healthcare and manufacturing.

This year the kids are doing even more of the prep work for the holiday, though we will be fewer in number. It’s funny how this coincided with the loss this past year of the last of the eldest member our family. We’re undergoing a generational shift both consciously and unconsciously.

It’s past time for me to pull together the family’s recipes and hand them off to all of the members of my kids’ generation. I’ve looked for decades now for a recipe database application that wouldn’t become enshittified over time. I wish I’d had that word when I first started looking for what I wanted, because it’s been a PITA to explain I didn’t want a free-now-but-recipes-held-hostage-later application, or one that would try to badger users to buy something as soon as they opened the app, or one that would steal the family recipes only to serve corrupted versions to others via AI-enhanced search tools.

I’ve gathered most of the family recipes, scanned those that were still on 3×5 cards, re-typed them all into plain text. I’m going to hand them off on flash drives this holiday, along with a copy of a free, open source note application so that the family’s heirs don’t have to expose themselves to Microsoft Notepad’s enshittification.

Perhaps next year the kids will take on even more of the holiday feast preparations once they’ve received the family’s cookbook.

~ ~ ~

There are two concerns I have for others this coming holiday: the cost of groceries and the problematic food supply chain.

If you have any pointers about cutting grocery costs for the holidays, please share them.

lf you’ve experienced shortages of food items and are using workarounds, please share them.

And if you’ve got the extra cash to help others this holiday, please give to a food bank or soup kitchen near you.

Feeding America has a tool for finding food banks near you: https://www.feedingamerica.org/find-your-local-foodbank

Share it with those who may need the assistance as well as those who may have resources to help others.

Food banks have been hard pressed to keep up with demand because of the government shutdown and the lack of SNAP funding, as well as the cascade of funding problems created by Trump and Musk’s DOGE-driven cuts to programs. Give what you can — even $5 can buy as much as 20 meals.

~ ~ ~

Lastly, if you have a favorite recipe you prepare each Thanksgiving, feel free to share below along with whatever you’re planning to do to prepare for the holiday. Are you traveling, and if so, are you taking anything with you to share over the holiday?

This is an open thread but let’s try to focus on Thanksgiving preparations and on topics related to food and the food supply chain.

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Breathing Room: What’s on Your Holiday Menu?

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I can tell from my social media feed that many folks are both restless and preoccupied. I’m sure it’s partly because they’re trying to wrap up work before the Thanksgiving holiday, partly because some folks are already traveling, and partly because some folks are already working on holiday preparations.

I’m among the last group. I’m not having turkey at home on Thursday in observance of the day with family; it’s going to be just us empty nesters and whatever large piece of beef or venison is occupying too much room in the freezer.

This will be the first year one of my kids hosts the holiday feast, though. We’ll be celebrating on Saturday because my youngest must work on Thursday but has Saturday off.

I’m reminded of my childhood holidays which were frequently shifted around because my mother was a nurse and always worked at least one holiday. Babies don’t stop arriving, heart attacks still occur, accidents still happen, no matter the day of the year. Health care professionals still show up to serve those who need care regardless of holiday observations. Thanks to all of you in health care and other first responders who will be on the job tomorrow.

Some manufacturing industries also have no time off; they run 7/24/365 and somebody needs to be on the job to keep production running, to keep systems in a stable safe mode. Chemical and pharmaceutical plants are just a couple examples; they often can’t shut down production altogether, or they can reduce operations but still must keep machines in a steady state because it’s more challenging to bring a system back up from a down state. This may be in part because of profitability, but it’s often about safety. Thanks to all the folks who will continue to work through Thursday for these industries.

Ditto for the shipping industry – ships don’t stop dead in the ocean, trains don’t stop on the tracks, trucks may pause at rest stops but they still keep their schedules. Again, profitability may drive some of this, but safety and security are also reasons why shipping continues. Thanks to all who will continue to work tomorrow to keep things running smoothly on Friday and beyond.

So while my youngest works tomorrow in one of these can’t-stop industries, I’ll be working on cooking and baking foods for the delayed feast on Saturday.

~ ~ ~

This year I’ll be spatchcocking a fresh turkey. This has caused no small amount of amusement in the family group chat. But spatchcocking – or butterflying, if you want to avoid the time suck the other word may set in motion in your conversations with friends and family – is the fastest way I know to roast a whole turkey.

It’s also a good approach if you discover the frozen bird you bought hasn’t yet fully thawed, but you’re going to have to do some surgery with a mallet and cleaver rather than kitchen shears and a knife. Ask me how I know this…

My eldest who is hosting the feast on Saturday will be occupied until noon; this is the primary constraint dictating spatchcocking the bird. We can’t get the bird in the oven before 12:30 p.m. and their older half-brother will be bringing little ones who need to eat earlier than later. Which means I have about 2-3 hours to cook a 13-pound bird.

I’m going to remove the bird’s backbone on Friday evening along with the breast bone and cartilage, then brine it overnight. I’ll just leave it in the brine bucket while we travel, then slap it on parchment in the bottom of a broiler pan while the oven preheats after noon Saturday.

For spatchcocking see: https://www.seriouseats.com/butterfiled-roast-turkey-with-gravy-recipe

For my favorite brine see: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/good-eats-roast-turkey-recipe-1950271 (I skip the allspice berries and candied ginger, add halved garlic cloves and a sliced thumb of fresh ginger instead.)

The host is fixing mashed potatoes and green beans along with a cherry pie. My youngest has been assigned pumpkin pie duty because it’s both their favorite and their most frequently made dessert.

For Impossible Pumpkin Pie see: https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/impossibly-easy-pumpkin-pie/ (Super easy because crustless!)

I’ll handle squash rolls, sweet potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, and a crudites platter. Nothing super fancy, relatively safe territory since there will be children present.

There’s a couple bottles of homemade hard cider my youngest made and left in my wine cellar; I’ll probably take those along with a Riesling and a moscato to enjoy with the turkey and dessert.

What are you preparing for this Thanksgiving holiday? If you’re not cooking, what are you expecting to eat?

~ ~ ~

In all the preparation for the holiday, let’s not forget that tomorrow’s holiday arose from colonists celebrating survival of their first year in the new world. They arrived on already-occupied lands, contributing to the eventual dispossession, deaths, and erasure of indigenous peoples, their nations and cultures.

Descendants of colonists continue to erase indigenous peoples with book bans and suppression of culture, preventing education about Native Americans as part of this country’s history.

It should be no surprise that Thanksgiving Day is marked at Plymouth Rock as a day of mourning by the heirs of dispossession and erasure.

For some of us this is intensely personal and not merely an interesting factoid one can drive by, even for those of us who walk in both indigenous and colonialist worlds.

On whose lands will you be celebrating your colonial holiday?

You can identify those tribes on this interactive map at: https://native-land.ca

I, a descendant of Kānaka Maoli of the Nā moku ʻehā territory, will be observing the holiday with family on the ancestral homelands of the Council of the Three Fires — the Ojibwe (or Chippewa), Ottawa (or Odawa), and Potawatomi tribes.

If you want a little light decolonizing, it’s worth rewatching Amber Ruffin’s How Did We Get Here from last November which tackled erasure of Native Americans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4BkHmUHR1k

~ ~ ~

This is an open thread.

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[Photo: Jose Chavez via Unsplash]

Trash Talk: Prepping for Tailgate Season

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We’re two weeks out from the first NCAA Football games. With them comes tailgate party season.

Just as the golf season widowhood appears to end, NCAA Football drops into the schedule. There’s always some excuse for bullshitting over beers outdoors, I guess.

The last couple of years my spouse has been part of an alumni crew who pull together tailgates for games played in our neck of the woods.

This means hunting down a loaner canopy and grills and tables and chairs and all the other hoopla necessary for a parking lot bash. Preparation also requires renewing acquaintance with the loaner canopy’s setup by installing it on my deck to air out. Sounds easy enough but the damned thing is missing a couple bits and pieces, is a much bigger package than I am, and must be wrangled into place with two or more people to accomplish this.

Gods help us if it’s windy.

Never mind the equally frustrating disassembly to stuff it back into its carryall to truck to the school’s parking lot ahead of the game.

There are discussions ad nauseam ahead of the tailgate as to whether it’d be better to have pasties shipped express from da’ U.P. , or make them here from scratch, or find a local supplier.

You may envision me studiously biting my tongue, sitting on my hands, and avoiding my spouse’s needy look in my direction as he hints at someone making them at home.

In the end it’s been potluck the last two years.

And then there’s the inevitable storage of the goddamned loaner canopy in my half of the garage over which I need to climb for months until the bloody thing is returned to its owner.

This year I said fuck that and bought one I can put up and take down by myself. I might actually have a party of my own some time, invite all the golf/football/deer season widows for some bullshit over beers, now that I own the canopy.

With the annual canopy convolutions avoided, I need to come up with some equally easy solutions to tailgate potluck contributions.

What do you take to tailgate parties or other outdoor potlucks?

While you’re at it, share a recipe for poutine if you have one because community member earlofhuntingdon is on the hunt. Not exactly your typical tailgate food but I bet I could serve some in large paper cups.

Consider this an open thread.

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