Top 6 Thanksgiving Foods (The Top 4)

Number 4-Pie!
It doesn't matter which flavor you choose, pie is one of the greatest things ever created. (I don't care what Jim Gaffigan has to say on the matter.) You may be stuffed as far as you think your stomach can manage, but as soon as you hear the word 'pie' you're ready for a little more. It's Thanksgiving, so feel free to indulge a little bit.

Number 3-The Bird! (however you like it.)
It may be a turkey or a goose, or even a tofurky, but whatever it is, that bird is going to be the centerpiece of your Thanksgiving meal. A Thanksgiving turkey is great because it last forever. Leftovers galore, and then some. It can last so long that you think you're never going to eat turkey again, but it's still on your mind the following November.

Number 2-Potatoes!
Potatoes are an amazing food. You can fry them or boil them. Mashed potatoes are pretty great too. The great thing about mashed potatoes is that you can eat them any and all of the time. Think about it. You probably had some form of potato recently, and you'll probably have potatoes right after your Thanksgiving dinner. How can you go wrong with a food like that?

Number 1-Stuffing!
I don't know about you, but this is what I really look forward to when it comes to Thanksgiving. Stuffing is one of my favorite foods ever. There's something about the taste and texture combination that I really enjoy. I'm not particular about the source either. It can come from the bird or from a can. It doesn't really matter that much to me as long as there is stuffing when I sit down for Thanksgiving.

Top 6 Thanksgiving Foods

Thanksgiving has a pretty long history. Go back to the Pilgrims and then to Honest Abe and all the way up to today, but what is the deal with Thanksgiving. So Abraham Lincoln made it an official holiday on the last Thursday of November, but it has become less about being thankful and more about being stuffed like the turkey you are about to carve in a couple of days.

So if Thanksgiving is going to be all about the food anyway, why not talk about the food for a bit? There are plenty of foods to talk about, but I'm going to limit this list to 6 rather than 12 because I'm almost out of time, and I don't see much point about writing how awesome cranberry sauce happens to be. (I'm not actually a fan of cranberry sauce, so that's even more pointless.)

I'm going to give a couple of honorable mentions and then move on to numbers 6 and 5. Tomorrow, I'll finish up the list with the top 4 Thanksgiving foods. So here are the honorable mentions!

Assorted varieties of bread!

Bread is awesome whatever form it may take. It really is one of the greatest things ever invented. If there aren't rolls or some kind of bread at your Thanksgiving it probably means you have a gluten allergy. (I'm so sorry for you if this is the case.)

Corn!
Corn is an integral part of Thanksgiving. It was one of the foods that was brought by the natives and it's a major part of pretty much everything you eat these days. I'm a big fan of corn and I love it during my Thanksgiving dinner.

Number 6-Gravy
I was at a Thanksgiving dinner for the AmeriCorps members in the Denver area recently and it was an awesome meal, except for one thing-no one made gravy. There were plenty of great foods to enjoy, and I'm not a huge fan of gravy anyway, but it definitely reduced the enjoyment of the meal for the people around me. This more than justifies gravy getting a place on this list.

Number 5-Green Bean Casserole
First a quick confession that I've never had green bean casserole for Thanksgiving, but I always see that commercial where everyone brings it to dinner. That is just about enough to make me put it on the list. Green bean casserole is a great dish and something I would appreciate on my Thanksgiving table.

There are four more dishes to go, and I'll get to them tomorrow.

What is up with Asian Buffets?

So, I've been living a nomadic lifestyle lately and I've earen at a few buffets featuring Asian foods over the last month. There's one little thing I've noticed with these establishments that really caught my attention a few days ago.

Why is it that all three of the buffets I went o had so much "American" food? If I'm going to one of these places, I don't expect to see rice crispy treats and sliced oranges. Sure they have fried rice and lo mein and all the stuff that goes along with them, but what is up with this? Pizza and mozzerella sticks and all sorts of things that are hard to eat with my chopsticks.

When I was at the last one, there was an old man who I'm pretty sure just ate plate after plate of orange slices. You don't have to go to the buffet for that. Just go down to the store and buy some oranges. What's the point of going to the Asian buffet if you aren't going to at least eat a little Asian food?

Cupcakes that don't have any cake in them?

OK, I won't deny that the whole cupcake craze is getting out of hand. I mean there are TV shows devoted to bakers who focus exclusively on cupcakes. Now I'm not talking about getting out the tray and dropping in the cups kind of cup cakes. These bakers are going all out. Crazy combinations of cake flavors and frosting with sculpting and advanced decorating as well.

I'm not too interested in advanced cupcake designs and all that. If I want a cupcake, I'd rather just have a simple one with a little frosting on top, and I certainly won't pay much to get a cupcake no matter how it looks.

 Now we get to the really crazy part, the newest trend in cupcakes-cupcakes without the cake. That's right some crazy cook out there got the idea to use their cupcake trays for something a little different. According to the story I was reading, it started with dishing up macaroni and cheese into the dishes to make it look more appetizing and easier to serve. I'm not sure all the different dishes that are getting served up this way, but there is one that caught my attention-lasagna. I love to eat lasagna, but it's so much trouble to make it that I hardly ever do. I think I'm going to have to check this out a little more and see how to make these.