Early November, 1999, I was driving down a rural highway on a sunny afternoon. As I rounded a corner, I was startled to see a wild turkey trotting across a cotton field – faster than you might imagine – heading toward the road. Math was not my best subject, but given my speed, the turkey's speed and our projected paths, even I could calculate that we were a bloody word problem about to happen.
At the moment his body should have been hitting my windshield and exploding like a grotesque feather pillow, he flew back a few paces and I whizzed by without hitting him. "Stupid turkey!" I groused. "You almost got yourself killed!"
A few weeks later, on Thanksgiving Day, I did something almost as stupid. I wasn't as careful as I should have been when handling the turkey (you know – wash your hands frequently, use a designated cutting board, disinfect surfaces...) and I spent the night singing whale songs into the deep, mysterious hole at the bottom of the toilet. The next morning, I was in the emergency room.
The CDC estimates that in the US there are 76 million foodborne illnesses per year and over five thousand deaths. Bacteria-laced poultry is the leading source of food poisoning. So there were others like me in the ER that morning, women and men with mint-green faces, wretchedly hunched over cramping bellies, clutching an assortment of decorative bathroom trash cans under their chins. One trash can had mockingly happy Disney characters on it. After a miserable, interminable wait, I was given IV fluids, Phenergran and another deliciously heady medicine that had me nattering on about how creepy it is that Mickey Mouse wears gloves but no shirt.
It was pretty easy to give up turkey after that. The next Thanksgiving, I brought a Tofurkey to the family gathering. It wasn't bad, just a little eerie in its fleshy texture, and in general, if I look at a food product and envision the manufacturing process – a large vat, gelatinous slurry, an extruder – it's an appetite turn off. When it comes to the Thanksgiving feast, meat substitutes are unnecessary. There are always plenty of meat-free offerings among the casseroles and side dishes. I've never gone hungry.
The most difficult adjustment has been editing recipes to suit a less–than-adventurous crowd. When you remove meat from your diet you have to replace the flavor with other ingredients. Sometimes those ingredients are unconventional, even weird, and Thanksgiving seems to bring out the traditionalist in everyone. They want the same green bean casserole, the same sweet potato souffle, the same stuffing. If I'm being honest, seeing the same spread year after year is reassuring, comforting. My mother and my mother-in-law are still with us, still healthy, and on Thanksgiving, the kitchen is still their domain.
This year, I'll bring a bowl of vegetarian gravy and a big salad with homemade dressing and croutons. I'll join the matriarchs in the kitchen, chop pecans for the stuffing, set the table, make sure the bread doesn't burn. I'll wash my hands a lot, and remind them to do the same! And I'll be oh-so-thankful I've had one more year as a "kid."
Bellwether's Vegetarian Gravy
I promise you won't miss the pan drippings! If you've ever had a vegetarian gravy or stew and the flavor was "thin," lacking umami, the missing ingredient is nutritional yeast. It's a staple in a vegetarian pantry. I add it to soups, stews, gravies, pot pie and shepherd's pie fillings. You can buy it at any health food store, just be sure you don't pick up brewer's yeast by mistake.
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp butter
1/4 cup sweet onion, finely minced
3 Tbsp flour
3 Tbsp nutritional yeast
1 and 3/4 cups vegetable broth (or one 14.5 oz can of Swanson's Vegetable Broth)
2 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
A small pinch each of sage, thyme and marjoram
Kosher salt and fresh black pepper to taste.
1/4 cup heavy cream
Measure the 3 Tbsp nutritional yeast into a small bowl and cover with a bit of very hot water. Stir until smooth and set aside.
In a heavy skillet, heat the olive oil and the butter over medium heat. Saute the minced onion until it is soft and slightly brown. Sprinkle the flour into the pan and stir to combine with the oil/butter/onion. Cook for a minute or two, stirring constantly.
Time to break out the whisk. Whisk in the nutritional yeast. At this point it will look dreadful (clumpy and oddly colored). Don't worry! It will come together once the broth is added and whisked smooth.
Slowly whisk in the vegetable broth. Whisk continuously until the mixture is bubbly and thick.
Add the soy sauce, and the herbs. Be sure you taste the gravy before you add any salt. Both vegetable broth and soy sauce can be significantly salty. Add pepper liberally.
Lastly, add the heavy cream and heat through.
(To make mushroom gravy, add a cup of chopped mushrooms to the oil when you add the onion. To make tomato gravy, add a large tomato, finely diced, to the pan once the onions are translucent, and cook until the tomato is softened before proceeding with the rest of the recipe.)
Creamy Mustard Dressing
This universally appealing dressing is creamy enough for the ranch folks and tangy enough for the vinaigrette folks.
½ cup mayonnaise (not the fat-free stuff)
1/4 cup champagne vinegar or white wine vinegar
2 Tbsp whole grain dijon mustard
2 Tbsp smooth dijon mustard
3 Tbsp honey
½ tsp herbes de Provence, crushed a bit in the palm of your hand
1 tsp capers, rinsed and chopped (optional)
Kosher or sea salt and pepper to taste. Start with a generous pinch of each.
Mix everything together in a one pint jar that has a tight-fitting lid. Shake vigorously to combine. Taste and adjust the sweetness or acidity and seasoning to your preference. Store in the refrigerator.
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Comments
Great recipes.. wish they were gluten free :(
Rated with Kleenex, sniffles and Vitamin C
I've missed ya.
{[R]}
I have a red wine veggie gravy that the carnivores are jealous of-- nice and thick as well...I'm going to have two gravies this year, yours looks yummy!
It's funny how widespread nutritional yeast is among vegetarian pantries...
The Mickey Mouse trashcan made me laugh! Just the other day my son and I were talking about Disney characters. We got back from a trip to Orlando last month, and we were going through our pictures. My wise 6-year-old said "I know that wasn't the real Goofy." I said, "How could you tell? He looked real to me. I even hugged him." His response was: "He didn't talk. The real Goofy talks a lot. I think it was a guy in a costume." I begged him not to mention that to his brother! :)
Happy Thanksgiving to You!
R
~R
A vegetarian since 1982, I attended my first anti-vivisection protest in the spring of 1985, as anti-apartheid demonstrations rocked the UC San Diego campus. I first became interested in promoting vegetarianism in mainstream society after reading John Robbins' Diet for a New America (1987). Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, it makes veganism seem as reasonable and mainstream as recycling.
Half the water consumed in the U.S. goes to irrigate land growing feed and fodder for livestock. Huge amounts of water wash away their excrement. U.S. livestock produce 20 times as much excrement as does the entire human population; creating sewage which is 10 to several hundred times more concentrated than raw domestic sewage. Animal wastes cause 10 times more water pollution than does the U.S. human population; the meat industry causes three times as much harmful organic water pollution than the rest of the nation's industries combined. Meat producers, the number one industrial polluters in our nation, contribute to half the water pollution in the United States.
Joanna Macy, author of Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age, depicts the advantages of America moving towards a vegan diet in her foreword to Diet for a New America:
"The effects on our physical health are immediate. The incidence of cancer and heart attack, the nation's biggest killers, drops precipitously. So do many other diseases now demonstrably and causally linked to consumption of animal proteins and fats, such as osteoporosis...
"The social, ecological, and economic consequences, as we Americans turn away from animal food products, are equally remarkable. We find that the grain we previously fed to fatten livestock can now feed five times the U.S. population; so we have become able to alleviate malnutrition and hunger on a worldwide scale...
"The great forests of the world, that we had been decimating for grazing purposes, begin to grow again. Oxygen-producing trees are no longer sacrificed for cholesterol-producing steaks.
"The water crisis eases. As we stop raising and grinding up cattle for hamburgers, we discover that ranching and farm factories had been the major drain on our water resources. The amount now available for irrigation and hydroelectric power doubles. Meanwhile, the change in diet frees over 90% of the fossil fuel previously used to produce food. With this liberation of water energy and fossil fuel energy, our reliance on oil imports declines, as does the rationale for building nuclear power plants..."
What could possibly make this vision a reality asks Joanna Macy? She immediately answers: "It is this very book!"
When I first read Diet for a New America, I felt it could have the same kind of impact on mainstream American society that Frances Moore Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet had in the '70s.
In writing his expose on the meat industry, John Robbins has been compared to Rachel Carson, Ralph Nader and other whistleblowers. I had the opportunity to meet John Robbins, in September 1988. It was one of the most inspirational moments of my life!
He was heir to the Baskin-Robbins fortune. He renounced it at a young age. He traveled to India, opened a yoga ashram in Canada, etc. He spoke of Gandhi and nonviolence. His son Ocean Robbins founded Youth for Environmental Sanity (YES!) and is also dedicated to promoting veganism.
I asked John if he would try and get the American Left to support animal rights. He told me that he had sent a copy of his book to Mother Jones, a left-liberal periodical published in San Francisco.
Many on the Left are beginning to take a stand in favor of animal rights. Joanna Macy spoke at the San Francisco Green Festival, in November 2005. In his 1990 updated and revised edition of Animal Liberation, Australian philosopher Peter Singer writes that many of the political parties leaning towards the "Green" end of the political spectrum in Europe were beginning to oppose animal experimentation.
John Robbins spoke before the United Nations in 1994, where he received a standing ovation.
For those of us who are veg for ethical reasons, the nutritional debates over soy, etc. aren't even an issue. The health advantages of going veg are just a pleasant side effect of a nonviolent philosophy. And meat and dairy analogs provide us with familiar tastes---without the cruelty.
Would it hurt to refrain from taking the lives of our fellow creatures? I had the opportunity to hear John Robbins, author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated Diet for a New America, speak at a Unitarian church here in Oakland, CA in 2001. The church was PACKED.
John writes in The Food Revolution (2001):
"The revolution sweeping our relationship to our food and our world, I believe, is part of an historical imperative. This is what happens when the human spirit is activated. One hundred and fifty years ago, slavery was legal in the United States. One hundred years ago, women could not vote in most states. Eighty years ago, there were no laws in the United States against any form of child abuse. Fifty years ago, we had no Civil Rights Act, no Clean Air or Clean Water legislation, no Endangered Species Act. Today, millions of people are refusing to buy clothes and shoes made in sweatshops and are seeking to live healthier and more Earth-friendly lifestyles. In the last fifteen years alone, as people in the United States have realized how cruelly veal calves are treated, veal consumption has dropped 62 percent."
Peter Singer concludes in Animal Liberation that "by ceasing to rear and kill animals for food, we can make extra food available for humans that, properly distributed, it would eliminate starvation and malnutrition from this planet. Animal Liberation is Human Liberation, too."
The gravy recipe looks like something I might try. I have gotten used to plain mashed potatoes, but my mother used to make pancakes the day after Thanksgiving and serve them with gravy. Sounds awful, but its worth trying.
The frugivores (gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees and other primates) have intestinal tracts twelve times the length of the body, clawless hands and alkaline urine and saliva. Gorillas and orangutans are completely vegetarian, whereas the diet of other primates is mostly vegetarian, occasionally supplemented with carrion, insects, etc.
Linnaeus, who introduced binomial nomenclature (naming plants and animals according to their physical structure) wrote: "Man's structure, external and internal, compared with that of other animals shows that fruit and succulent vegetables constitute his natural food."
One of the most famous anatomists, Baron Cuvier, wrote:
"The natural food of man, judging from his structure, appears to consist principally of the fruits, roots, and other succulent parts of vegetables. His hands afford every facility for gathering them; his short but moderately strong jaws on the other hand, and his canines being equal only in length to the other teeth, together with his tuberculated molars on the other, would scarcely permit him either to masticate herbage, or to devour flesh, were these condiments not previously prepared by cooking."
In The Natural Diet of Man, Adventist physician Dr. John Harvey Kellogg observes:
"Man is neither a hunter nor a killer. Carnivorous animals are provided with teeth and claws with which to seize, rend, and devour their prey. Man possesses no such instruments of destruction and is less well qualified for hunting than is a horse or a buffalo. When a man goes hunting, he must take a dog along to find the game for him, and must carry a gun with which to kill his victim after it has been found. Nature has not equipped him for hunting."
According to Dr. Kellogg, "The statement that man is omnivorous is made without an atom of scientific support. It is true the average hotel bill of fare and the menu found upon the table of the average citizen of this country have a decidedly omnivorous appearance. As a matter of fact, man is not naturally omnivorous, but belongs, as long ago pointed out by Cuvier, to the frugivorous class of animals...
"The bill of fare which wise Nature provides for man in forest and meadow, orchard and garden, a rich and varied menu, comprises more than 600 edible fruits, 100 cereals, 200 nuts, and 300 vegetables—roots, stems, buds, leaves and flowers...Fruits and nuts, many vegetables—young shoots, succulent roots, and fresh green leaves...are furnished by Nature ready for man’s use."
Dr. Kellogg further notes that "the human liver is incapable of converting uric acid into urea," and this is "an unanswerable argument against the use of flesh foods as part of the dietary of man. Uric acid is a highly active tissue poison...The livers of dogs, lions, and other carnivorous animals detoxicate uric acid by converting it into urea, a substance which is much less toxic and which is much more easily eliminated by the kidneys.
"Flesh foods are not the best nourishment for human beings and were not the food of our primitive ancestors," observes Dr. Kellogg.
"There is nothing necessary or desirable for human nutrition to be found in meats or flesh foods which is not found in and derived from vegetable products.
"The human race in general has never really adopted flesh as a staple food," explains Dr. Kellogg. "The Anglo-Saxons and a few savage tribes are about the only flesh-eating people. The people of other nations use meat only as a luxury or an emergency diet."
Although writing in 1923, Dr. Kellogg’s words confirm a recent statement by the American Dietetic Association, that, "most of mankind for most of human history has lived on vegetarian or near vegetarian diets."
Flesh-eating animals lap water with their tongue, whereas vegetarian animals imbibe liquids by a suction process. Humans are classified as primates and are thus frugivores possessing a set of completely herbivorous teeth. Proponents of the theory that humans should be classified as omnivores note that human beings do, in fact, possess a modified form of canine teeth. However, these so-called "canine teeth" are much more prominent in animals that traditionally never eat flesh, such as apes, camels, and the male musk deer.
It must also be noted that the shape, length and hardness of these so-called "canine teeth" can hardly be compared to those of true carnivorous animals. A principle factor in determining the hardness of teeth is the phosphate of magnesia content. Human teeth usually contain 1.5 percent phosphate of magnesia, whereas the teeth of carnivores are composed of nearly 5 percent phosphate of magnesia. It is for this reason they are able to break through the bones of their prey, and reach the nutritious marrow.
Zoologist Desmond Morris makes a case for vegetarianism in his 1967 book, The Naked Ape:
"It could be argued that, since our primate ancestors had to make do without a major meat component in their diets we should be able to do the same. We were driven to become flesh eaters only by environmental circumstances, and now that we have the environment under control, with elaborately cultivated crops at our disposal, we might be expected to return to our ancient feeding patterns."
In The Human Story, edited by Marie-Louise Makris (1985), we similarly read:
"...recent studies of their teeth reveal that the Australopithecines did not eat meat as a regular part of their diet, and were mainly peaceful vegetarians, rather like...gorillas. The popular image of the murderous ape is now as extinct as the Australopithecines themselves."
Dr. Gordon Latto notes that carnivorous and omnivorous animals can only move their jaws up and down, and that omnivores "have a blunt tooth, a sharp tooth, a blunt tooth, a sharp tooth--showing that they were destined to deal both with flesh foods from the animal kingdom and foods from the vegetable kingdom...
"Carnivorous mammals and omnivorous mammals cannot perspire except at the extremity of the limbs and the tip of the nose; man perspires all over the body. Finally, our instincts; the carnivorous mammal (which first of all has claws and canine teeth) is capable of tearing flesh asunder, whereas man only partakes of flesh foods after they have been camouflaged by cooking and by condiments.
"Man instinctively is not carnivorous," explains Dr. Latto. "...he takes the flesh food after somebody else has killed it, and after it has been cooked and camouflaged with certain condiments. Whereas to pick an apple off a tree or eat some grain or a carrot is a natural thing to do; people enjoy doing it; they don't feel disturbed by it. But to see these animals being slaughtered does affect people; it offends them. Even the toughest of people are affected by the sights in the slaughterhouse.
"I remember taking some medical students into a slaughterhouse. They were about as hardened people as you could meet. After seeing the animals slaughtered that day in the slaughterhouse, not one of them could eat the meat that evening."
Author R.H. Weldon writes in No Animal Food:
"The gorge of a cat, for instance, will rise at the smell of a mouse or a piece of raw flesh, but not at the aroma of fruit. If a man can take delight in pouncing upon a bird, tear its still living body apart with his teeth, sucking the warm blood, one might infer that Nature had provided him with a carnivorous instinct, but the very thought of doing such a thing makes him shudder. On the other hand, a bunch of luscious grapes makes his mouth water, and even in the absence of hunger, he will eat fruit to gratify taste."
As far back as 1961, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that: "A vegetarian diet can prevent 97% of our coronary occlusions."
More recently, William S. Collens and Gerald B. Dobkens concluded:
"Examination of the dental structure of modern man reveals that he possesses all the features of a strictly herbivorous animal. While designed to subsist on vegetarian foods, he has perverted his dietary habits to accept food of the carnivore. It is postulated that man cannot handle carnivorous foods like the carnivore. Herein may lie the basis for the high incidence of arteriosclerotic disease."
Keith Akers in A Vegetarian Sourcebook (1983), responds to the argument that humans killing other animals for food is natural:
"This is quite an admirable argument. It explains practically everything; why we do not eat each other, except under conditions of unusual stress; why we may kill certain other animals (they are, in the order of nature, food for us); even why we should be kind to pets and try to help miscellaneous wildlife (they are not naturally our food). There are some problems with the idea that an order of nature determines which species are food for us, but an examination of human history indicates the broad outlines of just such an order, though inhibitions against eating certain species may vary from culture to culture.
"The main problem with this argument is that it does not justify the practice of meat-eating or animal husbandry as we know it today; it justifies *hunting*.
"The distinction between hunting and animal husbandry probably seems rather fine to the man in the street, or even to your typical rule-utilitarian moral philosopher. The distinction, however, is obvious to an ecologist. If one defends killing on the grounds that it occurs in nature, then one is defending the practice as it occurs in nature.
"When one species of animal preys on another in nature, it only preys on a very small proportion of the total species population. Obviously, the predator species relies on its prey for its continued survival. Therefore, to wipe the prey species out through overhunting would be fatal. In practice, members of such predator species rely on such strategies as territoriality to restrict overhunting and to insure the continued existence of its food supply.
"Moreover, only the weakest members of the prey species are the predator's victims: the feeble, the sick, the lame, or the young accidentally separated from the fold. The life of the typical zebra is usually placid, even in lion country; this kind of violence is the exception in nature, not the rule.
"As it exists in the wild, hunting is the preying upon isolated members of an animal herd. Animal husbandry is the nearly complete annihilation of an animal herd. In nature, this kind of slaughter does not exist. The philosopher is free to argue that there is no moral difference between hunting and slaughter, but he cannot invoke nature as a defense of this idea.
"Why are hunters, not butchers, most frequently taken to task by the larger community for their killing of animals? Hunters usually react to such criticism by replying that if hunting is wrong, then meat-hunting must be wrong as well.
"The hunter is certainly right on one point--the larger community is hypocritical to object to hunting when it consumes the flesh of domesticated animals. If any form of meat-eating is justified, it would be meat from a hunted animal."
The myth that humans are naturally a predator species remains popular. "The beast of prey is the highest form of active life," wrote Nazi philosopher Oswald Spengler in 1931. "It represents a mode of living which requires the extreme degree of the necessity of fighting, conquering, annihilating, and self-assertion. The human race ranks highly because it belongs to the class of beasts of prey. Therefore we find in man the tactics of life proper to a bold, cunning beast of prey. He lives engaged in aggression, killing, and annihilation. He wants to be master in as much as he exists."
The fact that predators exist in the wild does not imply man must automatically imitate them. Cannibalism and rape also occur in nature. Robert Louis Stevenson, in his book In the South Seas, noted that there was no difference between the "civilized" Europeans and the "savages" of the Cannibal Islands.
"We consume the carcasses of creatures with like appetites, passions, and organs as our own. We feed on babes, though not our own, and fill the slaughterhouses daily with screams of pain and fear."
Studies indicate flesh-eaters have less endurance than do vegetarians, while vegetarians have two to three times greater stamina and recover five times as quickly from exhaustion. Most kinds of cancer, as well as heart disease, osteoporosis, kidney disease, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, hemorrhoids, diverticulosis, arthritis, gallstones and gallbladder disease are all preventable and/or treatable or a vegetarian diet.
In his 1975 book, Animal Liberation, Australian philosopher Peter Singer writes:
"Killing an animal is in itself a troubling act. It has been said that if we had to kill our own meat we would all be vegetarians. There may be exceptions to that general rule, but it is true that most people prefer not to inquire into the killing of the animals they eat.
"Very few people ever visit a slaughterhouse; and films of slaughterhouse operations are rarely shown on television...Yet those who, by their purchases, require animals to be killed have no right to be shielded from this or any other aspect of the production of the meat they buy.
"If it is distasteful for humans to think about, what can it be like for the animals to experience it?"
Peter Singer concludes in Animal Liberation that "by ceasing to rear and kill animals for food, we can make extra food available for humans that, properly distributed, it would eliminate starvation and malnutrition from this planet. Animal Liberation is Human Liberation, too."
Number Eight is a vegetarian! Will Americans now follow her example in all respects, and not merely with regard to teenage sex?
In his 1987 Pulitzer Prize nominated book, Diet for a New America, author John Robbins writes:
"We do not usually see ourselves as members of a flesh-eating cult. But all the signs of a cult are there. Many of us are afraid to even consider other diet-style choices, afraid to leave the safety of the group, afraid when there isn't any evidence that might reveal that the god of animal protein isn't quite all it's cracked up to be. Members of the Great American Steak Religion frequently become worried if their family or friends show any signs of disenchantment. A mother may be more worried if her son or daughter becomes a vegetarian than if they take up smoking."
Dr. Milton Mills' "The Comparative Anatomy of Eating,"
www.vegsource.com/veg_faq/comparative.htm
and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine,
www.pcrm.org ,
argue persuasively that the optimal diet for humanity is a vegan diet. However, even if humans really were natural omnivores and not frugivores, the diet of natural omnivores is mostly (80 percent) plant food.
Your 2 comments are 5 times longer than Bellwether's post.
...some manners might be nice
~~HI, BELL!! I'M WAVING HERE!! AFTER VASU!! ~~
Linda -- Well the nutritional yeast is gluten free. It must be a real pain to have to watch the gluten. It's in almost everything, it seems.
Greenheron --I dared! I hope you'll try it. It really is delicious.
Sixtycandles -- The scary thing is that I thought I was being pretty careful, but it wasn't enough.
Jonathan -- I hate that word. Makes me want to...
Christine -- It didn't go over too well here either, but I didn't think it was that bad. Expensive, though, for what is was and how it tasted.
Theresa -- Sorry! I couldn't help it! Nutritional yeast is a magical ingredient. I wish the grocery stores would carry it.
Design -- I have a new respect for both turkeys and food poisoning.
John -- Thank ya kindly!
Scarlett -- I've missed ya too!!! Good to see you out and about.
Stim -- Ducks crap too much to wear pants. Maybe they had only one suit and Donald got the top and Mickey got the bottoms...and as I type that it sounds sordid.
Lea -- I couldn't do vegan. I don't even do complete vegetarian (we do eat some fish). It does take more planning and prep, but not a whole lot more, once you get into the swing of things. We started by eating vegetarian two or three times a week.
Joan -- I love you too, ya know!
Catherine -- Thank you for reading!
LizG -- I know, right? The turkey is the worst thing on the table with all the other stuff to choose from.
Larry -- No one can say I didn't warn them! (Though I hope no one gets ill. I mean, I ate turkey for over thirty years before I got sick.)
Sophieh -- Let me know if you try it.
O'Really -- Gawd, the phrase "tofurkey sandwich" makes me queasy. I think we just ate slices of the thing. It defied sandwiches.
Owl -- Turkeys don't have too many weapons, just the bacteria. They use what they can.
Kate -- We ate that salad tonight. The dressing is good on warm potatoes and green beans too.
Oryoki -- I've had family members who've been sickened by chemo turn away from certain foods the preceded a bout. Funny how we make those associations. (Our gatherings are getting smaller and smaller as well.)
JustThinking -- Care to share that red-wine gravy recipe??
Lisa -- I've made that mistake (brewer's yeast instead of nutritional yeast). The containers look strikingly familiar. That's funny about Goofy! Kids know...
Littlewillie -- They can fly and they can run really fast! He was huge too. I'm glad both of us survived.
Felicia -- We eat at my mother's house, and...er...she's not a great chef (and will gladly admit it), but Thanksgiving isn't really about the food.
Grace -- I try to keep a salad like that in the refrigerator most of the time. If salad is easily available, we'll eat it instead of something else that requires actual heating and prep.
Fusun -- Where's your Thanksgiving menu/recipes? I hope I didn't miss them?
Matt -- There are youtube videos of humpback whales that mimic the sound exactly.
Alysa -- I've never heard a reasonable explanation for his state of dress.
Vasu -- I've found the best way to convince people to eat vegetarian is to make vegetarian food that tastes really really good. Good food speaks for itself. :)
ToughChick -- I don't doubt that pancakes and gravy are good! We eat toast with gravy and biscuits with gravy...pancakes aren't that far of a stretch. Speaking of mashed potatoes. I mash one sweet potato in with every two white potatoes. Yum!
Pavanne -- It's funny now...
Ann -- I think you'd like it. We finished off the gravy boat tonight, and I caught Mr. Vance running his finger along the bottom to get the last bit before he washed the gravy boat.
Bea -- If it was free, you have to eat it. Those are the rules.
Clay -- I hope you enjoy it! Report back if you try it.
Larry -- It beats the ads for Cooch Purses.
Femme -- I see you...waving...down there. I'm waving back...
Even the image of you regurgitating turkey isn't going to slow us down. Not one little bit. I will, however, give everyone explicit hand washing instructions, so thanks for that. (This could be the beginning of the story where Bell tells us why she gave up on meat though... I'm still waiting for that one). Oh, and you've got crazy mad salad skilz, girl. That dressing is already on a recipe card and pinned up for Wednesday's kitchen-mania session. You won't mind when I drizzle it on my turkey salad on Friday, right?
Linda -- I'd say "you stay safe too" but I"m not worried about you!
Susan -- You can bet some food bug won't get me next time!
Caroline -- I thought I saw him mouth a curse as I flew past.
Gabby -- Oh Gabby. You're making me cry, big puddles, at the thought of my dressing on flesh. But go right ahead. I can't stop you!
This was terrific, as usual. Such a talented writer. eerie turkey. ha ha.
Hugs -- What a sweet thing to say. :)
Clay -- I'm soooo glad to hear you liked the recipe. My worst fear is that someone will try a recipe and hate it, or have it not turn out. Even if you've made it ten thousand times that's no guarantee that it will work for someone else!
And I have to say, as a turkey, lettuce and tomato sandwich dressing - rockin'!
Hope you enjoyed your veggies and your smoker this past week. I'm thinking I need your address so I can have you smoke my ham for Christmas! Seems a little sad that it's never tasted 'flesh'! Naaah. You know you're my top contributor to my Recipe section on my blog, sister. Happy smokin' holidays.