1. Which do you like better: cooking at your house, or going elsewhere?

I prefer to cook at my place and have my family over.

2. Do you buy a fresh or frozen bird?

I prefer fresh.

3. What kind of stuffing?

Paula Deen’s “Good Old Country Stuffing”

4. Sweet potato or pumpkin pie?

Pumpkin pie. I love it in all of it’s iterations.

5. Do you believe that turkey leftovers are a curse, or the point of the whole thing?

A curse. To be quite frank, I hate turkey, and if I could get away with it, I would substitute that ghastly bird with some other meal for Thanksgiving.

6. Which side dish would provoke a riot if you left it off the menu?

Stuffing, easily.

7. Do you save the carcass to make soup or stock?

No, actually.

8. What do you wish you had that would make preparing Thanksgiving dinner easier?

Multiple sinks and dishwashers would be nice. I try to be a “clean as you cook” chef, but sometimes, I get overwhelmed, and it would be just wonderful to have more than one dishwasher going.

9. Do you get up at the crack of dawn to have dinner ready in the early afternoon, or do you eat at your normal dinner hour?

We start at about 9:30, and eat by 3:30. Which really, to me, is stupid. I would much rather start at noon and have dinner at the normal dinner hour. But, during the holidays, my mother likes to eat ungodly early…even in years when no one is coming over.

10. If you go to somebody else’s house, what’s your favorite dish to bring?

Apple pie.

11. What do you wish one of your guests would not bring to your house? What would you like them to bring?

Please don’t bring wine, I don’t drink it. However, I love appetizers and dips: I can never have too many of either.

12. Does your usual mix of guests result in drama, or is it a group you’re happy to see?

Our family has been whittled down to just the immediate family, and we get along the same way we do on every other day of the year.

13. Is your cranberry sauce fresh or canned? Whole or jellied?

My mother makes it fresh and whole. But my favorite side when I go over to my in-laws for Sunday dinner is canned and jellied.

14. What’s your absolute favorite thing on the menu?

Side dishes. With a lot of cheese.

14. Share one family tradition.

As I may have mentioned before, my family has slowly been whittled down to nothing, so there are no family traditions anymore.

15. Where will you be celebrating Thanksgiving this year?

This year will be with my parents, while everyone else goes down to Cincinnati.

16. Will you travel to get there?

Yeah, about 20 feet.

17. How much time, if any, do you have off work for the Thanksgiving holiday?

Just that day.

18. Are you going to be cooking?

Nope.

19. Will you have turkey or something else?

Something else, I hope.

20. Do you ever go out to a restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner?

There was a period of time that my immediate family would either go to NC to see my aunt and uncle and eat Thanksgiving at a restaurant, and if we didn’t do that, we would all go out somewhere to a restaurant. We only started having Thanksgiving at home in the time since I’ve graduated.

21. Will you go to a church service on Thanksgiving Day?

Why?

22. Will you, or have you ever, volunteered at a soup kitchen serving Thanksgiving dinner?

I don’t do a soup kitchen, but this year, since Lincoln is going to the Cleveland Food Bank, I donated my bakery for donations and gave a lot of canned goods to the Food Bank.

23. Will you get a free turkey from anyone this year (employer, grocery store bonus program, etc.)?

I don’t believe so.

24. What are you thankful for?

I’m thankful for my health (though sometimes, it lags), I’m thankful for the wonderful people I have in my life that make it worth living, I’m very thankful that I have job when so many others don’t.

25. Is there someone you wish you could be with this Thanksgiving?

I wish I could have spent it with The Boy.

26. Will you go Christmas shopping on “Black Friday” or are those people just crazy?

This year, I’m going to red-shirt it in lieu of my oral surgery.