a: YES!

Did you figure out what happened? Sounds like maybe an ingredient was missed or something?

Absolutely. Or a ‘It’s just going to get cooked anyway’

My mom once made gingerbread cookies so toxic even the squirrels wouldn't eat them in the middle of a terrible midwestern winter.

Ugh hang in there - hopefully the masks saved you! My partner works in a small shop where someone tested positive after working a shift (no fault of her own) and no one else got it because everyone was masked and following cleaning rules! I go into the office twice a week and last week my boss told me they spent the…

I’m reposting my reply to a Takeout article with a similar question, here we go!

BRINY SURPRISE! 

Mine totally would have rinsed the bird and kept on going. 

I am not a bad baker—in past years at my large family Thanksgiving gatherings, I’ve “won Thanksgiving”* with ginger macarons, or cream puffs with pumpkin custard filling and maple topping. This year I was doing a food exchange (no social gatherings!) with my husband’s family. We were doing the dessert, and we decided…

Man, that is SHITTY. Bailing on big, complex meal like that at the last minute is just plain shitty.

*Singing that song again* I swear I’m not stalking, I didn’t realize it was you when I clicked.

But... every Polish woman I’ve ever known had the kind of brass balls it takes to haul a fully cooked turkey back to the store and demand a refund. I know the whole Karen things now wants us to pretend that it’s always wrong …

Might be this Thanksgiving. My kid is distance learning but needed some extra support, so we hired a tutor. Monday, tutor comes. Both parties, as always, wear masks, for the 40 mins he’s here. Today tutor texts and says he took a Covid test Tuesday and got the results today - positive. FUCK.

I just remembered the one Thanksgiving when my mom returned the cooked turkey to the store. She was pissed off that it turned out really dry. She hauled the whole 20lb roasted turkey in the roasting pan back to the grocery store, puts it on the customer service counter, and says she wants to return the bird because…

Every year when I was growing up, we had to go around the table and say what we were thankful for. And every year, my dad would take this opportunity* to bitch that all he wanted but never got was kids who were obedient, grateful, respectful, never questioned him, and brought home straight As.

One year when I was a teenager, my family decided to try and deep fry a turkey. They let the enormous vat of oil heat up on our porch for HOURS, convinced that it wasn’t hot enough because it wasn’t boiling. (You have to put something in hot oil to see the bubbles!) Finally they fried the thing, it was delicious, but…

No real disasters, just a few stray memories over the years:

So it was just us 3 this year and somehow we managed to screw up dinner so bad that we ate spaghetti & meatballs for instead. At least the tiny human was happy. Oddly we are normally very capable cooks but you know 2020

In my early 20s I tried to do my first adult Thanksgiving on my own with friends. Spent all day cooking the bird and like 6 sides and a pecan pie. This was around ‘98? so I used the Joy of Cooking for all of it. Then the 2 friends that I’d invited both bailed on me at the last minute (like an hour before they were…

Dear Megan,

I legit don’t know whether this is a deeply pathetic story or not, but years ago , on the day we were supposed to be getting married before my ex broke it off, I did go by myself for dinner to the fancy restaurant where we were going to be having dinner with our immediate families (it wasn’t going to be a big…