Mr Bean wanted pumpkin ravioli
I seem to remember that Joe Leone’s in Point Pleasant had pumpkin ravioli. Or perhaps Pastosa’s in Wall? That way you can save your can!
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Ravioli alla Zucca (pumpkin) is quite popular in northern Italia.
Enjoy your dinner.
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We actually were in Pastosa when he saw their box of pumpkin ravioli which is made him think of it. I tried to convince him to buy it but he wasn’t having it. We ended up with a bread and fresh ricotta instead.
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We won’t be traveling or hosting this year, so it will be just the 4 of us – hubby, me and the kids (12 and 7). We’ve had at least a couple of other Thanksgivings where we didn’t travel for one reason or another (new baby, changed family plans, etc.). So i have a sense of what our scaled down holiday meal will likely be. Herb roasted turkey breast, mashed sweet potatoes (my daughter does these with cayenne and sometimes a hint of maple), sausage/apple stuffing (but not stuffed), brussel sprouts and/or green beans with shallots, cranberry orange relish. Dessert TBD. They don’t love pumpkin pie but it’s so much a part of the day, that I would miss it if we cut it out.
I’m sure we will Zoom with family but probably not during the meal. maybe for dessert or a pre-dinner cocktail. It will indeed be very strange not to be with my parents, sister and her crew.
Great topic.
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That reminds me didn’t travel for TG day last year either!
This leapt out at me. Outstanding that your 12 year old daughter is cooking. So many young people post in other cooking fora about moving out on their own for the first time and don’t know how to feed themselves. How does one grow to their mid-twenties and not learn to cook?
I have a rant on the subject of life skills I will spare you all.
That your daughter is cooking gives me hope for the future of humankind.
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Dr. Fauci on Thanksgiving 2020:
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Covered by parents, grandparents, college meal plans, or lack of interest, lack of confidence, limited public school instruction, economics, just to name a few.
I was always well feed but even at my age, at 62, I’m realizing how much time I have spent learning how to cook/bake/prepare in only the last decade. No shame. Just the time to focus on it properly.
Life skills can take a lifetime. You shouldn’t be glib about it. Doing anything well takes practice. In my mid twenties I ate very basic foods that required a can opener.
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He’s holding out for homemade, and I can’t say I blame him!
How was the fresh ricotta?
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My 7 year old son actually cooks more than his older sister. But both know their way around a kitchen and have well developed palates. I’ve been cooking with them since they were tiny. One of the silver linings of covid lockdown is that we’ve increased their visibility into more of the day to day cooking and project management of keeping the house stocked, meal planning, etc. It’s an important life skill, for sure. i’ve started a tradition (well, hopefully it will take hold) that the kids get to research and design a menu and then execute it (with some help as needed). I guide them toward age/skill appropriate recipes and make it open ended. they have a lot of free choice with guard rails. then I order whatever ingredients are needed – teaching them how to read the recipes and make a shopping list. then on a weekend day i get them started early in the prep so that we can try to eat at a normal time. I’ll pitch in with a side or so, but they do most of the work. It’s been terrific to help them not only expand their range of techniques and comfort level, but also teaching them about all the effort and planning that goes into getting a family meal on the table. I’m sure they will be better for it. And there’s no question that my propaganda campaign from birth about healthy eating and fresh, real foods has taken hold.
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Yeah - he may be waiting for a while…
The ricotta was delicious. I could eat it by the spoonful.
You are officially my hero. Gives me hope for my almost 6-year old who likes to help me in the kitchen. Eating, eh, not so much.
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That’s a great way to encourage awareness and grow life skills! It takes more time than doing it yourself, but they are learning how to cook, and you are also creating memories. Lovely!
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Hey everyone, nice to hear all the great suggestions. I’ll need to check in with my Mom soon to see what she’s planning on. The usual has been one turkey for Tday, one turkey for leftovers with lots of sides. Food is what our family comes together around my whole adult life and it’s been really weird not to be able to do that comfortably/safely. As someone who’s been working in Grocery Retail throughout this whole mess, I’m very conscious of interacting with others outside of work. I actually had a conversation with a customer the other day about Thanksgiving and reminded her that eating inside with folks outside of her household was a probably not the best idea.
I think our household of 3 might do something of a super scaled down version involving my hubby’s famous parkerhouse style dinner rolls, turkey/chicken, gravy, smashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. Having leftovers for sandwiches is at least a little bit of acceptably safe “old school normal”.
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This is key–the daughter of a friend of ours enjoys making meals from Hello Fresh (and in fact did Thanksgiving last year from their pack), but the prep times Hello Fresh gives are probably half what it actually takes her, so we always eat late when she’s cooking. The kitchen often looks like a tornado came through, so there’s that also. 
Then again one of my aunts used to season “with wild abandon”, as I called it, sort of flinging the salt shaker or whatever in a wide arc which made the whole stove area look like a salted pretzel.
Then again, I’m the “clean-up-as-I-go” sort of cook, where all the spices, etc., are put away while the meal is cooking so there is space for the dirty dishes later.
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My daughter just did a Hello Fresh meal!
When we were in our early years fresh with our grad degrees and starting our professions, we had Thanksgiving as OUR holiday. With our friends. No break long enough from classes to travel… We’d put Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant” on the stereo, smoke a bong, cook a communal meal, laugh at the jiggling jello mold and slept where we dropped.
Christmas was obligatory with laws and in-laws and snowy travel, scheduled appearances, fussy unappreciated Christmas gifts and a lot of people we were glad only to see once a year, including Uncle “Squeeze Me” Ed the old drunk pervert.
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Oh perfect on the Thanksgiving part - I especially love the Alice’s Restaurant aspect, and just crashing in place!
Creepy Uncle Ed, not so much @retrospek…
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It really isn’t Thanksgiving without that song. Medium Sized H & I drove to my sister’s in Delaware (when she lived there) and always, always, managed to hear it at least once on the car radio during the 3ish hour trip. I think if we hadn’t, we’d have just kept on driving 'til we did.
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