Much Ado About Nothing – “Thanksgiving Menu”
Let’s talk turkey about your upcoming Thanksgiving Dinner menu. This year, think out of the box and embrace your inner non-conformist. Traditions are important and wonderful and heartwarming, but, face it, pizza is better. This year, be thankful for what’s real: honesty. Be honest about a few things on your menu and set yourself and your family up for the best holiday feast ever.
Let’s start by being honest about green bean casserole: no one really likes it. So this year, let’s be thankful that we are adults who can choose not to make or eat green bean casserole! If you are reading this and, unfortunately, are not an adult, perhaps you can be thankful you can feed your green bean casserole to your dog. No dog? You’re screwed. Be thankful it only happens once a year.
I realized that green bean casserole is only on the menu because some meal-planner with an over-exaggerated sense of nutritional responsibility thought there should be something green on the plate, like a vegetable, which I completely respect. But, at Thanksgiving, respect does not trump mashed potatoes and gravy, macaroni and cheese or any version of dressing. In the end, the casserole is only taking up valuable real estate in your stomach. Who wants to pass on that extra piece of pie because that last two inches of open space under the diaphragm is full of mushroom soup covered bean stuff?
I understand if your grandmother is still alive and joining you for dinner. No one wants to see Grandma throwing hands because you didn’t make her secret recipe for green bean casserole. Pick your battles. Put a couple of beans under your mashed potatoes and try to ignore them. Like last year and every year since Ousemequin and the Pokanoket Wampanoag tribe of Native Americans showed up to the first Thanksgiving dinner in 1621 with a turkey and green bean casserole.
And maybe you want to cast aside your casserole and everything else that goes along with it. Maybe you don’t even like turkey. Or planning, shopping, over-spending, over-committing, all day in the kitchen, cooking, clean up, leftovers for life, over-eating, gaining 15 pounds. In which case, trash the tradition. This is, afterall, ‘Merica! Home of the Free! You have to right to stand up and just say: I WANT PIZZA!
