Somehow Thanksgiving has largely dodged the commercialization of the other major holidays. It is today as it was in my childhood, a chance to gather with friends and family to eat food, reconnect and spend some thoughts on how much most of us have to be grateful for.
Benign as it is, there are still some points to navigate. Here are some of the hacks in our Thanksgivings, and I look forward to hearing yours!
- Stuffing is better with more celery. Even celery-phobic children will happily eat celery-laden stuffing if the celery is finely minced.
- My mother firmly held that pumpkin pie, being milk, eggs, and pumpkin (a vegetable) was wholesome food for children and we had unrestricted access to it. Ours loved it so much they ate it for breakfast. While you may cherish your homemade crust, the pies for the children can likely be store-bought with no resistance from them.
- Don’t be afraid of leftovers. If anything, double the amounts you cook. There is nothing in a typical Thanksgiving dinner that doesn’t lend itself to delicious leftovers (see last week’s diary on soups, for instance). With a bit of deftness you won’t need to cook for several days after Thanksgiving.
- Pearl onions are easier to peel if you parboil them for ninety seconds in boiling water.
- Unless you are wedded to canned cranberry sauce, the easiest (and to my mind tastiest) recipe is the one on the bag of cranberries — just cut the sugar in half. The fruit flavor comes through better.
- Though Thanksgiving is about connecting, you don’t have to be a doormat. The guest who turned up an hour late for the meal explaining, “Some of us had to work,” did not get invited back (he was a jerk in other ways, too.)
- You don’t have to tolerate gross bigotry. A different guest who began tearing down various groups turned around to see me with his coat, saying gently, “I think it’s time for you to go now.”
- If you would like to include squash that doesn’t give you diabetes with its marshmallows and brown sugar, try roasting the squash — the edges caramelize beautifully.
- Buy lots of butter beforehand. Extra stores nicely in the freezer but you don’t want to run out.
- If you save all the miscellaneous vegetable peelings that the meal generates, you can throw them in with the turkey carcass when you make broth.
What are your favorite Thanksgiving hacks? Please share!