A Two Guys at Lunch Thanksgiving

We've been lax in our posting with the holiday upsetting our routine, but we are back and better than before.

Today is a chance for us to share our Thanksgiving thoughts with you before we reunite at Wegman's tomorrow.

Here we go:


Brace yourself before reading the following statement:

The Thanksgiving Day turkey is the most overrated food in the history of mankind.

Think about it. For all of the effort required to roast/grill the SOB (this year we defrosted our turkey in the bathtub, no lie) it really doesn't taste all that great.

You can stick celery or lemons up the bird's ass or smother it in butter and it still tastes the same way - dry and relatively tasteless. You know it, I know it, we are all just afraid to admit it because it seems equivalent to burning the flag.

Of course, I still eat a massive amount of turkey on Thanksgiving (smothered in gravy) just so I can participate in all of the tryptophan discussions. Each and every year someone you know will bring it up like it hasn't been a topic a thousand times before. I get it, you're tired and the turkey is to blame. Let me guess, you also drink red wine because it is filled with antioxidants? Wow, you are a pillar of important "current" information.

Speaking of wine, when I think of Thanksgiving, I think of dehydration. Trapped indoors, drinking wine from 10:00 AM on, a roaring fire burning and turkey all lead to a dryness in the mouth like no other day of the year. I have made it a point to drink a ton of water throughout the day with the occasional trip outside to make sure I'm not face down in front of the entire family. That would suck.

All in all though, Thanksgiving was a lot of fun this year. I still enjoy the Macy's Day Parade like I did when I was 8 years old and the kids loved it as well. Next year, my wife and I have vowed to make it into Manhattan to see it live even if that means we have to wear diapers to survive the crowds and lack of public restrooms.

We cut back dramatically on the "apps" this year and started things off with butternut squash/apple soup along with maple bacon and croutons. It rocked and we're still eating it.

We had your standard "sides" along with sweet potato casserole and corn casserole (with jalapenos). I don't know this for sure and don't take my word for it, but I believe that you either love sweet potatoes or you hate them. There is no middle ground and it may in fact be genetic. I'll have to google that and get back to you.

And finally, I have to admit I committed a major infraction this year and I should have known better. Dessert  should only consist of pies and nothing else. Pumpkin cheesecake may be the only exception. I screwed up royally when I bought a peanut butter cup cheesecake from a colleague at work and added it to the dessert menu. While it tasted fine, I think I felt a collective "what the f" from everyone at our house when we put it out. It just doesn't fit; kind of like having pumpkin pie at a barbecue in the summer. Lesson learned and it won't happen again.

Hello Hello! I’m back in action here on a Wednesday afternoon and looking forward to catching up with everyone! Let’s jump right in…

For starters, I had a very quiet Thanksgiving. We spent the day with my wife’s family just relaxing, eating and having a few laughs as always.

It’s one of those days where I can rationalize “It’s OK” eating mashed potatoes, stuffing and corn casserole all on one plate. The thought of eating carbs on top of carbs never entered my mind because it was “Thanksgiving” and the calories don’t count. Let’s put it this way, the only thing I was missing was a potato sandwich.

After piling it all on and covering every space of my plate with some sort of sugar or salted carb, I headed back to my seat to get down to business. As my shirt got tighter and the buttons pushed out (not from muscles), I felt like I was going through the transformation of Professor Klumps. But all was good knowing I had the next few days off to recover. Ahhhhh the feeling.

Over the next few days I watched a documentary on how this guy lost a ton of weight just juicing his food so I decided to experiment. On to “Whole Foods Market” for some healthy stuff. As I entered the produce aisle I could not resist taking this picture of these peppers so colorful and perfectly stacked (sounds funny but true), it made me want to call Dr. Oz and hear him say “Matt, I’m proud of you”. Still inspired by the documentary I watched, I picked up a few bottles of beet, carrot and celery juice to test the waters. Not totally bad, but takes some getting used to. I'm going to try to skip a meal a day and replace it with some sort of juiced item to see how it goes (a bottle of crabgrass right now sounds great). That was a joke.

Leave it to me to find the panini counter in a health food store and find a sandwich called “The Godfather”. It could not be more up my alley, whole wheat panini (whole wheat = healthy), breaded chicken cutlet (OK not so healthy), broccoli rabe (vegetable = healthy) and provolone (protein). My calculation says overall it’s a healthy choice and I'm all in.

I was so happy to find this combo that after ordering I wanted to start the tarantella dance with the other people in the store.

And here it is – “Vwaa-la"

The rest of the weekend was fantastic. Now I’m looking forward to listening to Christmas music and of course the radio playing every hour until we are completely out of the holiday spirit and sick of hearing Mariah Carey say “All I want for Christmas is Youuuuuu” and Wham’s “Last Christmas”.

One last comment on Matt's post. Don't let him fool you, he loves Wham. Ask him about his George Michael backpack. I kid you not.







Later