A Turkeyless Thanksgiving Feast
When it comes to Thanksgiving, the turkey is almost always cast as the lead actor taking center stage amongst a scrumptious spread of extras. I’m not sure how that came to be (I’m sure I could Google it), and I certainly know that Thanksgiving traditions are as diverse as the country that celebrates them… but personally, I’d never had a Thanksgiving without turkey.
There’s a first for everything. Despite the bird on the board, there was no bird on our table on Thursday. What replaced it? A Vegan Wellington (again, Google it). Having already made a full bird for Friendsgiving the Saturday prior, we decided to skip in in favor of this beauty.
And honestly, the only place the turkey was missed was when it came time for leftovers (you know how I feel about those). Before you feel too bad for me, I should tell you that Saturday’s leftovers allowed me to make turkey stock, ramen, quesadillas, paninis and my famous Thanksgiving Leftovers pizza, and that was on top of a lunch potluck at work, a full Thanksgiving spread and a weekend spent at a cabin full of lasagna, tacos and bacon crusted apple pie a la mode (not kidding). So I’m probably doing just fine without any more leftover experimentation this year.
Also as a result of Saturday’s big shabang, we wanted Thursday to be a more intimate gathering of the five humans and three pit bulls that make up my immediate family here in D.C. After a day of hiking the Billy Goat Trail, we gathered for an evening of gorging ourselves, drinking wine, taking a nice long walk and then gorging ourselves again. Oh, and some #AwkwardFamilyPhotos.
And if you ask me, that’s really what Thanksgiving is all about!
