It’s that time of year again. Families gather, the smell of turkey wafts through the air, the Macy’s Day parade and football games hum from the TV, and Mom’s onto her sixth glass of cooking sherry. It can mean only one thing: Thanksgiving.
And one thing that always comes along with Thanksgiving (other than the awkward tackling that occurs when you play what is supposed to be a flag football game with your cousins) is tradition. But just like the awkward tackles, tradition can sometimes do with a hiatus. And what better way to shake things up than to spice up the Thanksgiving meal itself? Some of the items necessary for this geek-flared feast may be a difficult to locate, but a little dutiful research can uncover a good tribbles dealer. (Sure, it might seem cruel to eat these cute and fluffy creatures but you simply haven’t lived until you’ve had roasted tribble with a hint of mint jelly.)
The first things that can be replaced are crescent rolls in favor of lembas bread (from “The Lord of the Rings”). We’ve all been there before. The main event is nowhere near being ready to be served. Everything except the crescent rolls and their siren call is nearly impossibly to resist. What usually follows is the majority of the rolls being prematurely consumed and the guilty parties become too full to partake when the rest of the meal is ready. No such problem exists with lembas bread since a single bite is more than satisfactory., unless your guest happens to be a hobbit, in which case a food shortage should already be on the shortlist of potential problems.
As far as sides go, there’s no shortage of possibilities. Something that’s bound to be a favorite is sautéed 1-Up Mushrooms (from Super Mario Bros.). They’re like regular mushrooms, only these give you an extra life. They can be a little on the tricky side to locate since, unlike regular mushrooms, they are found in bricks. And in only certain bricks. And only when you hit them. This can make finding 1-Up mushrooms a painful process, but worth it in the end. These are not to be confused with the size-altering mushrooms from “Alice in Wonderland.”
The main event of most Thanksgiving dinners tends to be a turkey. Now, there’s nothing wrong with poultry per se, but, let’s be honest, turkey’s been done (since the 1600s, to be exact). Instead of the usual, why not opt for the exotic and succulent tastes of chocobo (from “Final Fantasy”)? These big, yellow birds make for the perfect main course. They’re big enough to ride as well as flightless, so they’re easy to catch. Their size also makes it so that you can invite as many second or third cousins twice removed and still have plenty leftover for post-Thanksgiving chocobo sandwiches.
As far as dessert goes, you can forget about pumpkin pie. The ultimate capper for any Thanksgiving dinner is sure to be an Everlasting Gobstopper (from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”). As its name implies, an Everlasting Gobstopper never wears out. It’s a way of providing a dessert that is cost-effective and is guaranteed to keep one’s guests occupied until its time to shuffle everyone back over the hill and through the woods.
And for the more industrious hosts who would like to get a jump-start on next year’s Thanksgiving and find themselves with a few extraneous family members there’s always homemade Soylent Green.
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