Food Perp

Well, once again we're faced with the food holiday to end all food holidays: Thanksgiving.

photo attribution below

Many of you have purchased a turkey and will be roasting it in the oven for several hours. To you, I say "mazel tov."

I made a turkey only once during my married life. It was shortly after we returned to Cleveland, when we were living with my mother-in-law. We invited my parents and Mr. Ginley's Great Uncle Paul. It was the first Thanksgiving after my father-in-law had passed away. Honestly, it was a rather sad affair.

As I recall, the turkey was still quite frozen the morning of. I have a vivid memory of sticking my hand up into the bird's innards and wrestling to remove the bag of giblets. Warm water eventually loosened the contents and finished thawing the beast, and it cooked successfully after that.

There was an altercation between my Dad and Mr. Ginley. Dad thought my husband should carve the bird. However, having never done so before, Mr. Ginley was clueless and demurred to my father, who, grumpily obliged. 

It was just kind of a weird day. 

That's not why we never had a turkey again. The truth is, Mr. Ginley doesn't like turkey. Or mashed potatoes. Or sweet potatoes. Or gravy. Or applesauce. Over the years, our Thanksgiving dinners have pretty consistently featured (cold) ham sandwiches as the star of the meal with sides of stuffing, potato chips, cranberry sauce and rolls.

To satisfy whatever craving I have for traditional Thanksgiving fare this time of year, I go to Bob Evans. They have a meal on their menu that includes slices of turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce and biscuits. Yum. I may not be eating it on the actual day, but that's okay. We recently discussed the possibility of picking up Thanksgiving dinner from Bob's, which will be open that day. But then we'd have to get dressed and get in the car and drive there and, well, that's really just too much work.

So, I'll be heading to Honeybaked Ham to get the fixins for the big day. I'll throw together a pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce and bake some bread, and we'll be good to go. 

Mr. Ginley will watch some football. I'll take in some silly Hallmark Christmas movie. 

And we'll both enjoy a nice, quiet day of mostly doing nothing.

Sounds good to me.

Pass the Reddi-Whip, please!

Photo attribution: Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons