Thanksgiving Tips from Mom, with Love

By Sandy Hu
The latest from Inside Special Fork

Congrats to Stephanie H. from Dallas Texas who won our Logitech wireless speaker sweepstakes!

All this week, Special Fork bloggers will highlight Thanksgiving with tips, tricks and recipes for your holiday, culminating on Video Friday with a stuffed delicata squash demo, the perfect Thanksgiving main dish for vegetarians and a wonderful side for everyone else. For more recipes, visit our Special Fork database of recipes. Use the keyword, “Thanksgiving,” for your search.

When Dave made his first Thanksgiving dinner while at grad school in Massachusetts, I was prepared to be his personal Thanksgiving hotline until the meal was done. Actually, my son seemed to have survived his first major entertaining experience unscathed. As he pointed out with a chuckle, since many guests were international students, they had no great expectations.

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Prime Rib – A Royal Roast for Thanksgiving

By Andrew Hunter

Who says you have to cook a turkey for Thanksgiving? While my family usually succumbs to tradition and roasts a bird with dressing each year, we also enjoy a change every now and then. Besides, turkey is a bit over-rated, at least by my definition of what a special roast should be. It’s gotta scream special, be easy to prepare and tough to overcook.

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Thanksgiving for Two

By Lori Powell

It’s wonderful to have a long table laden with friends and tons of food to devour at Thanksgiving, but after you have attended or hosted many of these wonders over the years it’s nice sometimes to just have a peaceful, intimate reflection with a close friend or significant other.

So here is a menu geared for simplicity and allowing you to have the time to actually relax and reflect on the many, many things to be thankful for including, possibly, this menu….

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Starting a New Thanksgiving Tradition

By Katie Barreira

Thirty years ago, my then newlywed parents adopted Thanksgiving as their holiday to host. The blissfully ingenuous pair, along with seasoned sous chef Nana Noonan, undertook a feast for a family of 20.

The meal, an 18-pounder with Challah stuffing, butternut squash bake, creamed pearl onions, Grammie Barreira’s famous mashed potatoes and even the can of jellied cranberry sauce (presented on a silver platter with matching serving utensil) was a hit. It was so good in fact, that the hosts and the menu were penned in as the official bearers of Thanksgiving dinner.

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America’s Food Holiday

By Sandy Hu

If people and cultures are bound by their food traditions, Thanksgiving is the unifying holiday that links all Americans to a common heritage. We may modify the menu to include ethnic favorites such as salsa or sushi, or incorporate new culinary trends, like brines or rubs. But the tradition of turkey and stuffing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, are imprinted in our taste memories and are the comfort foods we crave at Thanksgiving.

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