QMusings

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

“Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is an annual one-day holiday to give thanks (traditionally to God), for the things one has at the close of the harvest season. In the United States, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November.”

“…certain kinds of food are traditionally served at Thanksgiving meals. First and foremost, turkey is usually the featured item on any Thanksgiving feast table (so much so that Thanksgiving is sometimes referred to as “Turkey Day”). Stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, Indian corn, other fall vegetables, and pumpkin pie are also commonly associated with Thanksgiving dinner.”

I live in the United States and having a beautifully roasted turkey for Thanksgiving dinner has become a juggernaut of artificially inseminated, genetically manipulated ornithological proportions. As “Turkey Day’ approaches, the media is a-glut with information on preparing and cooking The Bird.

The pressure to cook a wonderfully browned and juicy turkey is overwhelming, so much so that sometimes it feels as if Thanksgiving really is “Turkey Day” and not about giving thanks.

Throughout the years, I’ve been invited to many Thanksgiving dinners and while I look forward to stuffing myself with stuffing, I feel good, all warm and fuzzy, to be invited to this special dinner. Because it IS special.

Thanksgiving dinner brings the family together and what is wonderful is that it brings people together.

People will invite mere acquaintances over for Thanksgiving if they learn that the person has “no place to go.” It’s not about feeling sorry for them; it’s about being grateful that they have enough to share.

I’m very grateful that I usually have an invitation to Thanksgiving dinner - sometimes several! My family, like many, has been divided by divorce, distance and death. This means that some family members don’t have a place to go for Thanksgiving.

I usually attend Thanksgiving dinners. I rarely cook them.

Cooking for people feels very giving. Giving. Nurturing. Caring.

Sometimes I want to bring my family together and care for them. Without stressing out over the cooking.

Some years I’ve actually done the whole “turkey thing.”

One time I bought a ready-made Thanksgiving dinner from the supermarket. Heat and a few hours later, eat.

And then, one year, there was Thanksgiving Spaghetti.

I think spaghetti with meat sauce is a perfect no-stress way to cook a lot of food for a lot of people without a lot of stress.

5 Reasons To Have Spaghetti For Thanksgiving:

1) It’s cheap. Pasta is pound-for-pound cheaper than a turkey.
2) It’s easy. Unless you make the sauce from scratch, making spaghetti does not take as much preparation as a turkey and “fixin’s”
3) It’s fun! Slippery noodles + Tomato sauce = fun
4) It’s quick. No thawing. No brining. No basting. No hours of roasting.
5) It’s easy. You don’t have to know proper turkey carving technique.

You can even have make enough so that everyone has leftovers to take home.

Everyone knows that spaghetti is even better the next day.

The time I made spaghetti for Thankgiving? Everyone was thankful to be together.

Thanksgiving is not about The Turkey. It’s about being thankful.

So if you’ve always wanted to bring people together for Thanksgiving, but were too intimidated by The Turkey, FUHGETTABOUTIT!

Make spaghetti!

Now, would you please pass the Parmesan?

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