A Losers' Thanksgiving: No One Knows Your Name (But All Are Welcome)

  • 📰 seriouseats
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 101 sec. here
  • 3 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 44%
  • Publisher: 53%

United States Headlines News

United States Latest News,United States Headlines

A heartwarming tale of a not-so-average Thanksgiving gathering.

It was fall 2008, and my husband, Ham, and I were fresh-faced culinary school graduates. We'd moved to New York City and started our first jobs as line cooks—Ham was elbows deep in lavash dough most days, while I was peeling and deveining shrimp by the truckload. As members of the B team at our respective kitchens, we both had Thanksgiving Day off .

I emerged physically intact but too broke to take a cab, so I began a snowy trek to our home in West Chelsea in perforated Chuck Taylors, a reusable tote slung over each shoulder, and a 14-pound turkey hugged to my chest. Our studio was across the street from the Chelsea public housing complex on Ninth Avenue, steps away from Penn Station. The Craigslist post had described it as"a micro-loft, with bohemian character." This meant that it was a few strides long in either direction, with a rickety ladder leading to a lofted deck for the bed. Drawing from the Ikea"small spaces" inspiration page, we had tricked out the place with Liatorp, Fintorp, and several Grundtals.

As the fat rendered from the turkey's skin and dripped onto the electric coils, the oven shot off sparks. We stood close by with a fire extinguisher as the apartment filled with haze and the smoke and carbon monoxide alarms simultaneously rang out. Luckily, after an initial layer of soot had formed on the turkey, the air cleared enough that we could proceed. Ash was all the rage in the haute restaurant scene back then, so I was comfortable calling it an ash-roasted turkey.

I covered the tiny Swedish island with flour for the thousandth attempt at fixing my life. I don't mess around with booze in the crust or any precooked filling. I believe in, the kind my perpetually-dusted-in-White-Lily-Southern-spirit-grandmother would make me. After some rolling and crimping and filling, I popped it into my trusty $30 Black & Decker toaster oven and pulled up a chair.

After the first guest showed up, I was already mentally declaring myself a champion, but as we started to tuck into the modest banquet, the buzzer kept going off. I could hear the crowd cheering in my head as one after another, people kept piling in: the line cook who had just moved from Florida, the hostess from Trinidad and Tobago, the busser from Ireland, even the bartender avoiding her Long Island family.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.
We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 410. in US

United States Latest News, United States Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Opinion | Giving thanks on Thanksgiving should mean keeping promises to Native AmericansLet's dedicate this holiday to understanding and responding to the injustices against the original inhabitants of this land which stain our conscience. THINK I promise to eat a lot of turkey. Anna77086200 THINK THINK The title deed on the 85 acres I live on goes back to when US gov stole the land from Ojibwa. Gov took this land and forced them to live on reservations 15 miles south and 30 miles east. Today the res here is surrounded by state owned land that needs to go back to the Ojibwa.
Source: NBCNews - 🏆 10. / 86 Read more »

Christmas Hero Donald Trump Vows to Save Thanksgiving From the LibsHaving won the War on Christmas, Donald Trump has a new battle to fight: Saving Thanksgiving from a secret liberal plot. I'm I the only one that finds it ironic that the only thing threatening Thanksgiving is Christmas? So POTUS is gonna go to war with Christmas? WarOnThanksgiving He’s so brave Wut? Um...
Source: VanityFair - 🏆 391. / 55 Read more »

Trump Says Liberals Want to Change the Name of ‘Thanksgiving’“Some people want to change the name Thanksgiving. They don’t want to use the term Thanksgiving,” old man shouts at crowd. And the simpletons will believe him. Tell him that if he resigns, you'll rename it Trump Day.🤞 “Celebrate Immigrants Day” seems about right since according to all traditional lore Thanksgiving was invented by immigrants.
Source: NYMag - 🏆 111. / 63 Read more »

Fox News hosts defend Trump's 'war on Thanksgiving' claim by saying 'we're expressing gratitude'Trump claimed that people want to change the name of Thanksgiving, after Fox News aired segments discussing liberals who apparently are waging a 'war on Thanksgiving.' Ffs 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ it’s culture wars for the poor tax cuts for the rich playbook
Source: Newsweek - 🏆 468. / 52 Read more »

https://ew.comEntertainment Weekly has all the latest news about TV shows, movies, and music, as well as exclusive behind the scenes content from the entertainment industry. I’ll pass
Source: EW - 🏆 713. / 51 Read more »

Alternative Names for Thanksgiving by Me, a Radical Leftist Fighting the War on ThanksgivingIt’s me, a radical leftist. Did you know that I along with my fellow leftists have been conducting a War on Thanksgiving, setting our sights on this day of gluttony and football after we won the very real and not at all manufactured War on Christmas? radicals of any sort are bad, but there’s only coverage like this on social media when it’s radical leftists, never radical right wing folk. I call it Gratitude Day, a day to be grateful and give back. Doesn’t recognize the dark history of Thanksgiving, but these hundreds of years later, I am grateful to be an American, living in America, as a WOC, whose rights are protected by laws. ❤️
Source: Jezebel - 🏆 153. / 63 Read more »