The other chocolate dessert I have been seeing a lot lately in bakery windows is Chocolate Chess Pie. I REALLY want a piece! This one looks delicious and simple! http://thesouthernweekend.com/chocolate-chess-pie/
Restaurant (Italian) and a movie with the family. I only cook when out of town relatives come.
Wis75, thanks! What was I thinking? Of course I know Rose Parade NYs, been there a few times. I guess I’ll ve been so busy cooking, I don’t know what is on TV in the morning.
We are with friends, 19 of us in all this year. We all have our assignments!
Thanksgiving week in Marina del Rey – 2 very late college tours!
thanks missbwith2boys – that sounds like a must have item for my kitchen. I make hard boiled eggs a lot and the peeling factor is a little annoying.
I love hearing all these stories (and recipes). I’m thinking: ditch the pumpkin pie and go for something yummy like a chocolate pie. Traditions are made to be broken.
Sounds like my blended holiday is not to be. Fiance’s daughter has vetoed it and DD will be off to Vermont with her boyfriend. So fiancé and I will cook the dinner together and eat it together (our first real holiday together) and his kids can have leftovers if they want.
My parents and my uncles/aunts were all in the Chinese restaurant industry. That means on Christmas morning, it was simply another work day for them since the restaurants were open.
But the curious thing about American Thanksgiving was there wasn’t a need for the Chinese restaurants to be open. Thus, Thanksgiving became the big family holiday when I was growing up. Lots of relatives would come over and my dad would roast a massive turkey (or two). In subsequent years, I took over the turkey roasting (using his recipe, of course. He was quite the turkey snob, God bless him! hahaha).
Now my kids love the traditions and we have to have the usual side dishes year to year. Mom and dad are gone now but I still love Thanksgiving more than Christmas.
I already bought a Napoleon at Uwajimaya (only $20 for a huge cake that serves a small army!!), so that’s the dessert.
Popped into Total Wine next door and got some bubblies and my favorite Zinfandel.
Got potatoes and sweet potatoes at Costco.
Will get the rest of the food this Friday. Turkey will wait until next week; I will grill it using my favorite SOP. Thanks for the reminder that Mr. needs to get more gas for the grill!!! 
Love your story, @T26E4.
I think it would make a great food documentary to profile different families around the country from different backgrounds/races/ethniciities/SE groups and look at their traditions and family practices. I think of it as the biggest national holiday that most celebrate. July 4th doesn’t seem to be the same as Thanksgiving.
"I already bought a Napoleon at Uwajimaya "
@BunsenBurner I googled this and couldn’t find anything. I think of napoleons as little individual pastries with the flaky layers and pastry cream. Is it similar?
It is the same thing just GIGANTIC. 
By these guys:
http://www.eurobakeportland.com/
Napoleons freeze well. Of course, I have no idea why an Asian grocery would stock a freezer full of European desserts… Saw it there a while ago when I was shopping for veggies, and now it is my go to place for Euro cakes.
Looks like we’ll celebrate the Sunday before, since two are going out of town to his family and one will be working. So I may volunteer at the hospice on Thursday, be sure someone’s there for the families.
What’s sweet is a friend in a tough financial situation will get to go see her kids and grandkids, a long flight away. It’s been several years since she saw them. She works hard in a 4-person/very busy office and out of gratitude, her boss paid for the flights. How nice.
That Napoleon sounds amazing, BunsenBurner!
T26E4 – I love Thanksgiving way more than Christmas too! I love the forced day off with no gift exchange and just about family and eating a nice meal together that doesn’t vary from year to year. The older I get, the more I like it.
@T26E4, okay, give it up-what is the turkey recipe? I’m looking for anything to help me get a juicy turkey. Last year I brined it for hours and hours exactly as instructed, and it was the worst one ever. One year I roasted a perfect one, and have no idea what I did differently. I’m not cooking this year, but maybe I can practice a time or two before next year.
Nrdsb, I make my turkeys on the gas grill. I follow the procedure of the Reluctant Gourmet. The turkeys were the regular birds from Costco, no brining or any special treatment. My family says they are so much better than any oven-roasted turkeys.
lookingforward – that is so touching – you volunteering at the hospice, and the boss paying for airfare. Really sweet.
I love the turkey recipes. I’m in the “it better have the pop up thingy so I know when it’s done” camp.
@Nrdsb4 Cooking the turkey upside down on a roasting rack for the first hour to hour and a half, then turning it over, results in a better breast and a bottom half that is delicious meat rather than sludge.
I picked up this technique from Beat This! a hilarious cookbook by a former writer for Spy magazine.
Basically, the bird is trussed, stuffed or unstuffed. (If the latter, put some aromatics in the cavity, such as cloves of garlic, an onion, a carrot, celery, some herbs.) Oil or butter it all over and sprinkle with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. Place a large sheet of parchment paper over the roasting rack in the roasting pan. Place the turkey on the parchment paper, breast side down, and cook at 325. 12 minutes a pound if it is over 16 lbs, 15 minutes per lb if it is under. Cook breast side down for 1 hr for the smaller bird, 1 1/2 hrs for a larger one. (You can extend this time a bit if you want.) Remove from oven, pick up bird in potholders or gloves, turn bird over and replace on rack breast side up. If you want, you can baste it every 15 minutes with a sauce made of 1 stick of unsalted butter, the juice of a lemon, 2TBSP of Worcestershire sauce, and half a cup of turkey or chicken stock. If you want, you can put a shallow pie tin of hot water on the bottom rack of the oven and replenish as needed. (I never do this because my lousy wall oven will not accommodate both that and the turkey. )
@BunsenBurner, that sounds like a work intensive process! You must have the patience of a chemist who loves working in a lab. 
MIGHT be able to talk DH into helping with that. Our Thanksgivings tend to be very pleasant weather-wise, so we’d have that going for us.
No, it requires a timer and me flipping the turkey at pre-calculated intervals. Very easy.
http://www.reluctantgourmet.com/how-to-grill-your-turkey-on-a-barbecue/
My grandmother always started turkey upside down and was a never-fail poultry roaster, legendary among friends and family, if I say so myself. She would start with liberal butter on the outside, then just baste with pan drippings. She didn’t use a rack. So, the outer breast started cooking in all that melting fat and the inside of the breast self-basted from internal juices falling on it.
And btw, we put nothing on our sweet potatoes. So delicious on their own.