Thanks! I try never to make non-vegetarians uncomfortable…I’m not judging anybody. But I know it can be stressful to host me, even though I’m perfectly happy as long as I have some bread or a potato or something.
I checked Instacart and Whole Foods, but there’s no sign of any Snapdragons in my city. I’ll look out for them, though. Sometimes we just catch on to things a little later than the rest of the country.
Yeah, on one hand I think it’s great that there are so many imitation options for people who would otherwise have a hard time becoming vegetarian/vegan. On the other hand, it seems like it’s getting increasingly hard to find vegetarian stuff (restaurant offerings, frozen dinners) WITHOUT meat and dairy substitutes, which are generally just not for me.
Thanksgiving at sister-in-law’s was a great family gathering of 13, with her sons, their spouses, 4 grown grandkids and a (maybe soon fiance) girlfriend of one. The surprise to us was that they’d decided on ham as the main (no turkey) and no potatoes or gravy. I brought whole wheat beer bread and made cinnamon-sugar spiced pecans the evening we arrived, and helped SIL make broccoli salad and BIL baked beans. Most of the sides and a pie were made by sons/spouses. We had a wealth of sides - no one went hungry including the vegetarian granddaughter: Cold : veggies & hummus, devilled eggs, canned cranberry sauce, jello-fresh cranberry sauce, broccoli/red grapes/cashews salad, pasta salad, beer bread, King’s Hawaiian rolls. Hot: corn casserole, green bean casserole, dressing, sweet potatoes w/marshmallows, BIL’s baked beans. Homemade pies: apple, pumpkin, lemon meringue, four-berry, with vanilla ice cream optional. Sweet snacks: glazed Chex w/ M&M’s, my spiced pecans, Andes mints.
Conversation, card games and much laughter after the meal, then leftovers were packaged up and taken by all for next-day enjoyment. My husband took on the task of loading the dishwasher twice to take care of almost all the cleanup, with sons/grandkids handling the unloading. Workload and enjoyment for the day felt fully-shared.
We don’t have phone/internet coverage at their rural home, and they choose to have only what they can get via a limited cellphone carrier, and broadcast TV with an inadequate antenna for their river-valley location. We like to visit them, but appreciate regaining our connectivity about 10 miles from their home.
My husband and I are in this situation now too. Changes in family dynamics and work obligations (big deadlines that affect ability to travel) mean that traveling for T’Day isn’t practical for us at this stage. We’ve always been the ones expected to make the trip. Others don’t want to travel to us, so everyone doing their own thing has become the happy solution. Being real about what works has helped us all.
Yay! I’m so glad you (and your son) liked it!
In our area (the southwest) our new favorite apple is the Sugar Bee. Very sweet, but with great flavor, and super crisp. We still love Opals though, which are a bit tarter, and oddly, don’t brown after being cut. We also really like Cosmic Crisp, despite their expense. Haven’t seen those yet this year, though.
We had a discussion about haggling and returning things to the grocery store. My daughter said she was not familiar with returning food to the store. Cousins said " take back food …open…“it didn’t taste like you said it would!”. 
For baking I prefer Granny Smith but Honeycrisp are on top for eating fresh.
Of course, Trader Joe is happy to take things back … makes me more willing to try new products. I took 365 Ricotta (house brand) back to Whole Foods, it had zero flavor. They were fine returning my $. (I really like the 365 Italian olive oil!)
I see that yesapples.com lists Snapdragons as available at Costco but IME individual Costco location inventory varies a great deal from one store to another.
I tried Cosmic Crisp last year from Wegmans. They were small but great…pretty similar qualities to Snapdragon. The CC this fall from Walmart were larger but blander and less crisp.
Ok, finally got around to cooking my personal Thanksgiving day meal today.
Scooby Snacks around 11 a.m. of Manchego cheese and quince paste, topped with a Marcona almond; prosciutto; red grapes; Wegmans cave-ripened mild Triple Crème cheese with rosemary/sea salt crackers; cashews; and clementines. I won’t win any charcuterie board awards, but it tasted good to nosh on while I was preparing other dishes for the day.
Dinner was a roasted turkey breast, dry-brined for 24 hours with kosher salt, freshly ground pepper, minced fresh rosemary and dried thyme, roasted at 325° for about 2 hours, with homemade gravy.
Sides were sour creamy mashed potatoes; roasted halved Brussels sprouts and sweet potato cubes, drizzled with olive oil and maple syrup, and tossed with some fresh and dried cranberries and whole salted almonds near the end of roasting (supposed to be pecans, but I didn’t have any in the freezer); glazed carrots; steamed green beans with toasted almonds; and homemade cranberry-orange relish.
Wine was some 2018 Grgich Hills Estate Chardonnay, and dessert was a slice of a rustic French Apple Tart with some French Vanilla ice cream.
Lots of leftovers. 
I knew you had good taste. I am not a big Chardonnay fan UNLESS is Grgich Hills. I’m also a big fan of their Zinfandel. Unfortunately it is much harder to find than the Chard.
I NEVER get sick of those. Classic as they get. If I had one whenever I wanted, I would have chowed three writing this post.
It’s all beautiful and inviting!
It’s a special treat wine for me. Out of my price range for my usual wine o’clocks. 
Meanwhile, my one son is the only one who likes pumpkin pie, and usually I try to do something pumpkin-y, cause love, but it’s a lot of work. I personally love pecan pie, and never get or make it because my other son has allergies, and it’s just easier not to introduce those into the environment. My FIL who came to dinner had a party the day before as a client of a realtor, and they were all promised a pie to take home. Apple, pecan, or pumpkin. So I said - bring pumpkin. He likes it, kid 2 likes it, I don’t have to bake one. Win win win. What happens? Kid 2 overeats on t-day, and has no room for dessert. On day 2, he has one slice of pie, and grandpa takes the rest home. It was a huge one too - 12" in diameter. Meanwhile, I still haven’t gotten my pecan fix! If I’d asked for pecan, I would have taken much more than 1 slice. Lesson learned.
Your dinner looks great, but for me that French apple tart takes the prize!!! 
Sorry you didn’t get your pecan pie! It would have been the best way to get some.
I recall you mentioning your son with nut allergies. That’s a really tough thing to have to deal with. Scary, given how prevalent stuff is.
As for
That sounds a lot like us. No one had any dessert after our Thanksgiving dinner (served around 1:30) because we were all so packed. The FrankenPie and the pumpkin muffins didn’t get unpacked until around 8 p.m.!
We had t-day dinner at dinnertime, as we typically do. This year because we took a walk outside first, it ended up being slightly after 7. So there wasn’t even time to digest and then make room for dessert. But he was the only one who didn’t have dessert. The rest of us made more of an effort!
As for the pecans, now that the big kid is in college, it’s a bit easier. Nuts when he’s gone, no nuts when he’s home on break. It’s fine. When you live with someone allergic for 18 years, nuts don’t tend to be a large part of your cooking or eating repertoire…
