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You’ll probably be grateful that I’m not coming to your house for Thanksgiving dinner.
As a lactose-intolerant vegetarian, I’m the kind of guest that most people dread inviting after they discover my dietary challenges. But, food restrictions aside, I really can be a delightful guest and an engaging conversationalist.
If you find a vegetarian on your guest list this year, don’t be too concerned. Vegetarians have learned to forage. As long as there is sweet potato casserole, salad, dinner rolls, green beans, and pumpkin pie, all is well. And if that fails to satisfy, we’re perfectly capable of digging up some roots or gnawing on some bark – and being quite happy with it.
Of course we all know that Thanksgiving is not about the food. It’s about the gratitude. But we all know that somehow it always becomes about the food.
My grandfather, for example, would have been crushed had he not been served a minced-meat pie for Thanksgiving every year. And not the fake stuff. He demanded the real deal. Minced-meat pie, as the name implies, is one of the nastiest dishes on earth – right up there with haggis and head-cheese. At the end of the day, there it sat on the table with the rest of the leftovers, with one slice missing from it. No one else was about to touch it. My guess is that Grandma ended up pitching the rest of that pie.
Just to shake things up, a few years ago my wife and I hosted a Mexican food-themed Thanksgiving. We served our extended family faux chicken and soy cheese enchiladas, and no one knew the difference. Maybe it was the margaritas that silenced the skeptics. As I recall, everyone was exceptionally thankful that day.
Last year we had soup, salad, and bread. All-in-all it was gloriously simple. No hassle. No fuss. And the best part was that we all really enjoyed each other’s company without stressing over food preparation. When it was all over none of us felt uncomfortably bloated, either. It’s hard to gorge yourself on soup.
So, it really doesn’t matter what you serve for Thanksgiving dinner – it could be turkey pot pie, toast, a bowl of popcorn, or some flax seed – as long as you share it with loved ones and consume it with gratitude.
And if you should choose to go veggie this year, the turkeys will be the most grateful of all.
BTW, I'm thankful for my superwoman wife and two spirited, healthy children. I'm grateful for
hot water showers, reliable transportation, clean sheets, food in the freezer, a comfortable home, and a huge extended family that supports us. I'm thankful for a career that allows me to do really important stuff like laugh, dance, and sing with kids -- and a job that allows me to bring my girls to work with me most of the time. And to paraphrase "Desiderata", despite all of its craziness and painful pitfalls and shams and drudgery, this is a beautiful world and a wonderful life.(Most of this essay also appeared in the November issue of Johnson County Lifestyle and Leawood Lifestyle magazines.)
You are right wrt the vegetarian options. Our daughter is a recovering :) vegetarian and she was always easy to cook for amidst the rest of us carnivores. She would eat the whole Thanksgiving feast except the turkey. We'd just make sure we also had a couple deviled eggs for her for the protein. She also had a vegan/lactose intolerant bf a few years ago (one of the things I'm thankful for is that he's history) but even he was easy to cook for. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your little family.It is about togetherness though it does seem that we gather around the table. My oldest DD was a vegetarian for a couple years and the only thing that dismayed me was that it seemed she ate a lot of starches at Thanksgiving time. The other thing was that you don't realize until you really start reading labels how many items have things like animal fat, chicken broth and other such ingredients. Oy! But she always had a grand time! Happy Thanksgiving!
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