Thanksgiving
Slow-sauteed greens: Shelve the green-bean casserole
A twist on a Southern classic leaves the leaves sweet, savory and with concentrated flavor
Topics: Eyewitness Cook, Food, Thanksgiving
Today in Foods for and With Which I Give Thanks, let’s talk about greens.
In many precincts of the South, people show their deep, pot-licking love of hearty greens by cooking the bejeezus out of them in ham hock-y stock, forever and ever, until they nearly melt into the smoky broth. Greens and pot-likker, as the broth is called, are the kind of thing that you will never make as well as someone’s momma, but if you’re close enough, you might get yourself an engagement ring. (True story.)
Continue Reading CloseFrancis Lam is Features Editor at Gilt Taste, provides color commentary for the Cooking Channel show Food(ography), and tweets at @francis_lam. More Francis Lam.
How turkey came to our Thanksgiving table
Once shunned by my Muslim family, the bird finally found a place in our home, just like so many American traditions
Topics: Islam, Life stories, Real Families, Thanksgiving
(Credit: SunnyS via Shutterstock) My Pakistani and American Muslim social circles celebrate Thanksgiving each year alongside our Eid festivities and Super Bowl Sunday parties, featuring homemade guacamole dip, chips and samosas. But it wasn’t always like this. For my family, this marriage between East and West was three decades in the making.
The 1980s: An “Amreekan Holiday”
As a child, I often asked my mother what we were eating for Thanksgiving.
“Food,” she replied matter-of-factly.
“Are we eating a turkey?” I asked.
Continue Reading CloseWajahat Ali is a playwright, attorney, journalist and essayist. His award winning play"The Domestic Crusaders," was published by McSweeney's in 2011. He is the lead author of "Fear Inc., Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America." He is currently writing a pilot for HBO. He is co-editing the anthology "All American: 45 American Men on Being Muslim" published in June 2012. More Wajahat Ali.
My drunken Thanksgiving
I made two mistakes on the day I met my future in-laws: Trying to shed my shy exterior and, then, the casserole
Topics: Life stories, Real Families, Thanksgiving
(Credit: Tatiana Morozova via Shutterstock) The first time I met my boyfriend Eric’s family my sweet potato casserole went on fire. It was Thanksgiving 2003. Eric, whom I felt funny calling my boyfriend, since we were 36 and 40 at the time with five children between us, had invited me to his sister Julie’s house for the holiday. Since neither of us had our kids for Thanksgiving that year, Eric and I would get to be grown-ups, not parents. No strollers. No strained peas.
Eric drove up to Julie’s the night before Thanksgiving to cook. An obsessed chef, Eric had spent a week planning the menu with his siblings. “I’m making my sweet potato casserole,” I said to Eric as he made a grocery list, “with mini marshmallows on top.” I sensed disappointment, a Campbell’s Soup casserole stuck out among toasted almond haricot vert and saffron-infused stuffed turkey, a recipe that involved coriander, cumin, cranberries and couscous. My mother roasted a turkey every year and we were lucky if she remembered to take the giblets out. “You don’t have to make anything,” Eric said. But alas, I insisted.
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The people we're most grateful to have around this year
Topics: Arab Spring, Education, Egyptian Protests, Elizabeth Warren, James O'Keefe, News Corporation, Occupy Wall Street, Thanksgiving
Clockwise from upper left: Elizabeth Warren, Wael Ghonim, Diane Ravitch and Ray Lewis Admittedly, I spend a lot of time grousing and naysaying. Today, though, we put that negativity briefly aside, as we celebrate a day of thoughtful reflection, and a night without a GOP presidential debate. I thought it appropriate, on the occasion of Thanksgiving, to thank some of the people who’ve worked to make the country and the world a better place over the least 12 months.
Thanks to Wall Street Occupier Jesse LaGreca, who didn’t only show up the Fox reporter sent to embarrass occupiers, but also managed to get the OWS message across on a Sunday political chat show, which is essentially unheard of. So thanks to you, for bringing up economic justice to the ancient panel of crusty establishmentarians on “Meet on Press.”
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Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene.
The birth of America’s bastardized cuisine
Since that mythic first Thanksgiving, we've relied on native plants to augment dishes from the old country
Topics: Eatymology, Food, Thanksgiving
Jean Leon Gerome Ferris' "The First Thanksgiving 1621" (Credit: Library of Congress) America is a country originally settled by scoundrels and religious zealots — thieves, embezzlers, prostitutes, arsonists; English Puritans, French Huguenots, German Amish, Czech Moravians and Russian Mennonites. The screwed-over Scotch-Irish, the shanghaied London street punk, the peace-loving, slave-owning Quaker, the enslaved Gullah. It is also the native land of the Ojibwa, the Zuni, the Makah, the Miwok and the Seneca. This alchemy of sinner and saint, “savage” and sophisticate is the source of our original cuisine: a stolen, borrowed, distorted culinaria that can pique the tongue, clog the arteries, fire the belly, or mellow the soul.
Continue Reading CloseFelisa Rogers studied history and nonfiction writing at the Evergreen State College and went on to teach writing to kids for five years. She lives in Oregon’s coast range, where she works as a freelance writer and editor. More Felisa Rogers.
How to give back this Thanksgiving
Between turkey, football and Black Friday planning, take a moment and help someone who needs it
Topics: American Spring, Charity, Thanksgiving
A 3-year old girl holds her mother's hand as they carry bags with food from the North Fulton Community Charities food bank in Alpharetta, Ga., in this picture taken June 4, 2008.(Credit: Reuters/Tami Chappell) The annual celebration of Thanksgiving — looking beyond its function as a filler of stomachs and provider of marquee football matchups — is perhaps America’s clearest exercise in mixed signals.
On one hand, the act of gathering around a dinner table with loved ones, taking stock of our lives and giving thanks, isn’t just one of our nation’s most staid traditions; it’s also a fundamentally humble act that harks back to the collectivist underpinnings of America’s founding myth. Consistent with that ethos, giving has become the order of the day; and each November, millions of Americans do.
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