Thursday, November 27, 2008

Turkeys for Thanksgiving -- as friends, not feast

The Los Angeles Times
By Carla Hall
November 27, 2008

At Karen Dawn's Thanksgiving feast, there will be yams and stuffing with cranberries and a dessert of pumpkin-pecan pie, all set out on a table for eight.

And there will be turkeys, two of them actually -- Emily and Bruce (or possibly Brucilla -- it's a little unclear). The two 20-pounders will have most of the privileges of Dawn's other sentient guests -- a Pacific Palisades patio, a view of the ocean and vegetarian nibbles.

At Dawn's vegan holiday dinner, guests will ooh and aah over live birds. The only turkey plunked down on her table will be Wild Turkey bourbon.

"It goes beautifully with the hot apple cider," Dawn says brightly.

Read the rest of the article here....


Personal note: The last time I saw Karen was at an AR conference going on ten years ago. Thinking back on it now, who would have ever imagined that turkey-less Thanksgivings would become so mainstream less than a decade later. (Btw, way to go, Karen - great feature!) I imagine there's a lot more of us doing veggie and vegan holiday meals than even we realize.

If you haven't tried pardoning a turkey yet yourself, please consider it for next year. Contrary to the cliff-notes version of popular opinion, Thanksgiving isn't all about the turkey. It's also about the stuffing, the cranberries and the gravy (and honestly, once you pile all that stuff on your fork, you can't really even tell if there's turkey underneath). Seriously, mostly it's about the tradition of it all - and taking a few hours out of the whole year to give thanks for something. I'm not going to try to beat anyone over the head with how turkeys are produced for the holiday; there's plenty of other websites for that. But I will leave you with this thought: whatever you may have to be thankful for, wouldn't it be nice to add one more item to the list - a small act of kindness that is easy to swallow for the diner but means the world to the dinner.

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all!

No comments: