The Thin Red Line

Thanksgiving dinner is a notoriously difficult meal to pull off. It often involves cooking for a much larger number of people than even the most enthusiastic thrower of dinner parties is used to cooking for, and very often the planning, cooking and serving take place amidst severe emotional stress as less than amicable members of the larger clan prepare for and arrive for this annual reunion.

Whether you’re never cooked for this many people before and are in need of a life raft or are an experienced Thanksgiving host looking to upscale your menu a bit and learn the easiest ways possible for planning, preparing and serving this big deal meal, the editors and contributors of Fine Cooking magazine have got you covered with How To Cook A Turkey And All The Other Trimmings

An A to Z soup to nuts reference for the Thanksgiving dinner host or hostess. Everything you need to know about buying and cooking a turkey. Excellent recipes for easy side dishes from the traditional mashed potatoes and green beans to various flavors and variations for the turkey, gravy and stuffing to imaginative appetizers and desserts to round out the meal.

The book is well organized and clearly written. While not every recipe appealed to me, many of them did such as Garlic Roasted Green Beans with shallots and hazlenuts and the Cornbread Pecan Stuffing and the Chocolate Pecan Pie. If you will be cooking and serving Thanksgiving dinner, get a hold of a copy of this book. It will be a huge help. Highly Recommended

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This is one of Ron’s picks, and not one I myself would have selected. This fourth volume of true stories of people who have "removed themselves from the gene pool" by killing or sterilizing themselves through acts of great stupidity strikes me frankly as more than a little over the top and I am frankly uneasy at making fun of the suffering of stupid people, knowing full well that all of us behave stupidly at times.

Judging from Ron’s frequent bursts of laughter as he read the selections by Wendy Northcutt and her website community, some of these tales must be quite funny, but I was so horrified after hearing the one about the Romanian who in 2004 was infuriated by a noisy chicken that kept him awake all night that he one night rushed outside and snatched up the chicken and chopped its head off with his yard axe only to look up in horror as the un-beheaded chicken scampered away and a passing dog ate his penis, which had fallen to the ground beneath the chopping block that I didn’t read any of them.

I am thankful for each and every one of you who visit The Thin Red Line and especially to Majik, who’s meme I’m not actually going to answer. (Sorry.)

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