2 posts tagged “food”

What is your favorite dish on the Thanksgiving table?
Submitted by Kadeeae.  

To paraphrase someone with whom I went to high school: Shit fuck cock yeeeaaahhhhh, I love Thanksgiving. While I'm a little bit tired from all of that TV discussion below (speaking of which, I forgot about Six Feet Under...that's another show that came close to jumping the shark and actually sort of did from time to time, but was still so powerful that all was forgiven by the tear-wrenching finale), I can't skip this question...much like I can't skip stuffing at Thanksgiving.

But is stuffing my favorite? It's one of my favorites, sure. But it really depends on the Thanksgiving table...it's not like there's a standard Thanksgiving dinner across all homes. Sure, there are the staples (turkey, some semblance of vegetable), but even there, some people get all crazy and have things like ham or tofu or the like. And that's just the main course...the side dishes vary wildly from meal to meal. Someone in your family allergic to bread? There go the stuffing and rolls. Is someone diabetic? There go all the sugary foods. Did someone come home from college and bring their new piercings and lesbian partner who will be forgotten by the time graduation rolls around? There go the green beans.

So rather than talking about my "favorite" dish on the Thanksgiving table, instead, I'll list what, to me, equals a somewhat ideal Thanksgiving dinner. Obviously there's the turkey...not too dry, not too raw, but just right. Then there's a giant bowl of stuffing: moist and savory. Gravy would also be a necessity (gravy made from the turkey's juices, preferably, not store bought...though who am I kidding, I would eat it). After those things come the mashed potatoes; lumpy, smooth, I don't care, just so long as it's tasty and there's plenty of it. Also crucial are the yams. I know some people like them coated or mixed with marshmallows, but given that actual dessert is still yet to come, I could personally do without those. I suppose there should be something in there to act as a counterpoint to all the starch (speaking of which: rolls...sure, they usually just serve to fill you up, but it's the decadent cherry on the top of the whole meal), and I nominate green beans to fill that place. Let's see, what else...actually, that seems fine. That should be enough to cause heart palpitations, which is what Thanksgiving is all about.

Then there's dessert. As my friends know, Thanksgiving and Christmas have become the two days in the year when I allow myself to have dessert (even though I don't celebrate Christmas, I usually spend it with friends who do, so I get a delightful meal without the church-going), so it has to be special. And I'm a simple person with simple tastes, so a slice or two of pie is good enough for me (perhaps with some ice cream on the side). The kind of pie is practically irrelevant...you have no idea how good sugar tastes when one only has it twice a year.

So that's Thanksgiving...one of my two favorite holidays of the year (the other being New Year's Eve, but only when it's done right...when it's disappointing, it can be crushing). Shit fuck cock yeeeeaaahhhhh.

What's been your worst experience at a restaurant?

Hm...in terms of "bad moments in my life that have taken place at a restaurant," I guess I could point to the lunch that Tina and I had at Denny's when she finally put a gun to the head of our terminally ill relationship and pulled the trigger, sending it into the sweet embrace of Death...I think I had pancakes, though, which are so very good at Denny's...so it couldn't have been all bad.

In terms of "worst experiences because of a restaurant," I suppose it would be an amalgam of times the service was slow or the waiter/waitress was snippy...nothing in particular is leaping to mind. For some reason, the time that we had a League outing to Denny's and Tom threw a sausage onto my beloved trenchcoat, thus ruining it forever, is bubbling to the surface...but that probably falls under the first heading...or under the subheading of "worst experiences at Denny's." But goddamn, they have great pancakes.