Food time may not be the right time for you in Spain

This is something that always comes up with visitors to Spain. A friend has recently come to visit and in addition to noticing my food shopping procrastination,  she made me realize that we eat at funny times.

We don't eat Spanish style but after living here so long and of course dealing with the weather the same as everyone else, we have inadvertently adapted to the food schedule.

The system as I, a foreigner, understand it in Spain is generally eating five times a day. It goes something like this:

Breakfast: maybe a cup of coffee, or a cigarette, or both. Juice and a piece of toast if you're all into it.
A toast favorite of mine here is pan tomate: toasted left over bagette bread smeared with puré of fresh tomatoe, olive oil, and sea salt.

Around 10:30-11am. It's break time. I can't seem to get a firm grasp on what this is called in Spain. Almuerzo is a possibility but some say otherwise. It is not uncommon for everyone to go get a coffee from an office environment around this time and eat something small. It is very common to see people who work manually sitting in the shade or on a sidewalk eating a bocadillo (sandwich on bagette bread) and drinking wine or beer or coke. It's a snack to get you through til lunch.

2pm Comida. In the Madrid area, this is just referred to as Comida maybe different in other parts. This is normally a three course lunch. On weekdays this is a very affordable and filling option. Last week I paid 8 Euros for: course 1 - cannelones; course 2 - skirt steak and fries; course 3 - an ice cream cone, drink included. It's sort of stick to your ribs physical worker food out in the villages where we are at. In the city a few minutes away, sometime it has more finesse but it's always the same structure. This is traditionally the big meal of the day. Children are released from school to go home and eat big and they come back at 4:30 or so which makes for a challenging day for working parents and a lot of grandparent involvement or paying the school to keep the kids for this time frame. After this would be your nap if you take one, not everyone does, and many people are too far away from home to go back anyway.

5-8 pm is merienda. Again snack time but more commonly this is something sweet. A donut or tortitas: that is American style pancakes with chocolate syrup and whip cream. This is the only time of day McDonald's serves pancakes here. People generally make sure kids get something during this time frame.

Dinner, well that depends. I understand that you might feed the kids here at 8 or 8:30pm. Restaurants do not open for dinner until 8, 8:30 or 9pm depending on their preference. I've entered a restaurant at 7:50pm and been told to come back later.

For Valentine's day one year, we left our house at 7:30pm, arrived, were seated and ate our dinner as the only patrons in the restaurant. At 9pm when we were leaving, a few couples were coming in. A fancy dinner out would probably be scheduled at 10pm or perhaps 11pm.

The next question every American asks is how do they sleep with all that food on their stomach. I have no idea. I do know people stay up later here generally. Even Spaniards sometimes admit it's not good for you to eat so late.

If they are eating at home, this 9-10pm meal is something lighter, not a big three course meal. A Spanish tortilla for instance would be a dinner. It's like an egg and potato omelet but made in a flat pan shape which is a fine art here.

I usually do eat breakfast. Mother raised me to eat something before I left the house. I don't do 10:30 snack/almuerzo though on occasion will eat a cookie if I'm starving around 11am. We eat lunch in the office between 1:30 and 2 usually, rarely do we go out for the three course meal. It takes a long time and even though affordable doesn't meet our budget.

 I try not to eat anything after work around 6pm but if I'm starving I might have a snack. Dinner without air conditioning in a summer of 100+F at times got later and later. We ate consistently at 8pm but often it drifted into 9pm. Now that the weather is cooling, we might eat a little earlier. I like the free time aspect when I arrive home and often write then, rather than "starting dinner,"  so it's not going to get too much earlier than 8pm.

When we are home in the USA and someone wants to beat the crowd to a restaurant at say 5:30pm -- it sort of gives me reverse culture shock. It seems like eating a late lunch to me. Funny what you get used to without even knowing it.

The art of procrastinating on food

Does everyone have major grocery purchasing aversions like I do? I've become the queen of substitutions for recipes -- assuming I even bother with a recipe for dinner -- in order to avoid stopping by a store.

In the last month, my significant other and I have achieved a new all time high or would it be stooped to a low(?) in avoiding food shopping. Today we had a conversation that went something like this:
I could eat a spoonful of peanut butter for breakfast.
Oh, you're out of cereal? Don't we have bread?
No.
Hey -- we have tostas. (Spanish pre-toasted crunchy bread slices. Think melba toast.)
Perfect, peanut butter, jelly, and tostas.
I've still got cereal.
Perfect.

This conversation took place on the way to get something out to eat for lunch, so the leftovers in the fridge could be lunch tomorrow.

Everyone does avoid the store on occasion (don't they?)  but we've really turned it into a game the last few weeks. I find great satisfaction in raiding a kitchen that seems to have nothing in it and coming up with dinner. Granted it's going to be dinner with not all the ingredients but dinner it will be.

It's funny there have been times in my life when this substitution or avoidance was due to financial constraints, but this time it's just shear stubbornness or laziness. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it's "vacation" month in Spain and everyone is either at the beach or wishing they were, so my own personal take is avoiding the reality of grocery carts.

Now, if I'm honest this month of avoiding the store has had to necessarily require visits to the corner shop in our village. It tries to do an impression of a grocery story but it really only has two aisles and a VERY limited selection. I would say most US convenience stores are probably on par with the selection. So we have picked up a couple more liters of shelf milk there, a couple lemons, some lunch meat and bread when we decided to have sandwiches all last weekend, uh toilet paper, and a few odds and ends. We also buy a lot of random things that just accumulate in the cabinets that have aided this creative non-food-buying marathon.

I know we are probably spending too much buying the odds and ends like this rather than breaking down and going to the big store, but we've been one-upping the sensation  that you need to go to the store for a couple weeks now.

So last Monday we were going to grill and had thawed all the meat in the freezer. A freak storm came up that was glorious and humid for a few hours of relief in in our high desert, but no grilling. Hmm, but we do need to eat. So eggs to the rescue -- we had a revuelto frozen package and voila dinner. Revuelto is a veg mix of some sort that you mix with eggs in Spain. Tuesday we grilled all the thawed meat and proceeded to eat it for the next couple days. Thursday on the way to work with the last two burgers in a bag for lunch we laughed and said okay we have to go tonight that was all fun but time is up.

Oops. It's a holiday and the grocery store near us is closed. Now we could have driven 30 minutes and shopped elsewhere, but not us. We decided to push it further. We discovered some forgotten fish fillets in the freezer which my hubby creatively turned into fish curry with some also forgotten cranberries.

Enough fish curry for lunch on Friday! I had a revelation that I still had a lemon and could reproduce that lemon pasta dish minus the chicken. I mean really if there's rice and pasta in the house, you can keep the game going awhile, right?

Saturday we walked to the corner pastelleria (pastry shop) and got goodies and a liter of milk for breakfast and we're (eureka!) invited to a barbecue for dinner. So we have not achieved this non-shopping streak without the help of others and restaurants to be fair.

Breakfast is going to be our undoing I think. It's going to have to be this week. Or we could make a couple more stops in the corner store to make it to a full month of non-shopping. Like I said, we've still got rice.

Self discovery oddly enough via Pinterest

I'm not an avid pinner. I have a few boards. One is for characters in my books, one is for books I like. One I called "Food I Will Likely Never Make" because I'm a big one for looking but not actually doing -- as I suspect a lot of pinterest is.

The food page is where I made my self discovery. I opened the board for the first time looking for something I thought I'd put there that maybe I would consider making depending on the ingredients. What I discovered is that I am obsessed by the same basic foods.

I have pinned several versions of macaroni and cheese. I know, what am I 12?! Oh comfort food, I love you.

I would have admitted before looking at this that I like cinnamon rolls. Based on the board, I have to say I REALLY like cinnamon rolls. The shameful revelation is that I've never made them and my vehement pinning of cinnamon rolls is the hunt for a recipe that will finally be easy enough that I will actually try. I often eat cinnamon rolls and think I want MORE cinnamon. It seems that I secretly dream of a day when I find a recipe that doesn't involve raising, waiting two hours and kneading etc. but allows for easy mix up dough and LOTS of cinnamon. Disclaimer: I'm living in a country that doesn't have cinnamon rolls (except for Starbucks) so this may be part of my obsession. 

I pin a lot of enchilada related things. Enchilada soup, avocado enchiladas, chicken for enchiladas in the crockpot. If I go to a Mexican restaurant, I often order burritos so this is intriguing that I pin enchilada related things. I do love anything in the Mexican/tex-mex genre. On a side note: I have NOT pinned the four billion versions of adding things to guacamole. Why mess with something that is pretty much perfect? Corn and goat cheese in my guac? No, thanks. But I digress.

I have pinned frozen desserts that don't require an ice cream maker. Granted I've at least chosen two different flavors but I see a pattern again. Few ingredients and a pan in the freezer. I'm looking for the easy dessert fix apparently.

Overnight French Toast is another biggie with me I hadn't realized. Not sure I'm a fan of french toast to the point of obsession and repeated pinning, but I think the truth is, I love the idea of breakfast just being there when I get up on weekends. So the idea of french toast in a crock pot that would be all gooey and ready is appealing. I tried a breakfast egg casserole in the crock pot a few months ago for dinner. Turns out my crock pot here in Spain cooks super hot and scorched the heck out of those eggs in about 6 hours instead of 8. So much for the overnight idea. Scorched french toast just isn't as appealing, nor is getting up at, say, 3 am to turn it on so it's not scorched by morning. This is probably not going to happen. Ever. Thanks goodness for my significant other making muffins, smoothies and such! whew.

A lot of my recipe pins are crock pot ones, as I'm apparently on the trail of homemade food that I don't have to spend much time making happen. I want to eat well I just don't want to participate much. It's another pattern I didn't know was there.

The one trait I'm a bit horrified to admit that the pattern shows is I want it easy and effortless. I wish I was one of those people that enjoys the process and the art. That would seem more noble. I just like to eat yummy-ness but prefer minimal effort which doesn't always go together I find.

I wonder if everyone could go to wherever they hoard recipes and find a pattern? Do you have any food obsessions that you KNOW about or will it come out in some public forum someday?

 

Pros and Cons of Cruising from an indie traveler perspective

I just got back from a Baltic cruise. I don't have much experience with cruising. We are not the people that go a couple times a year. In fact, it's been twice in 25 years. The first time was a family outing and I did not make any decisions about it. I showed up when I was told to and it was Caribbean so quite different than this Baltic one. My impressions from that long ago cruise were few: everyone was seasick as we had bad seas, lots of different food I hadn't had before,  brief visits that were far too short to see an actual location, and expensive.

Normally we do independent travel. Plan our own tickets and hotels and go on our own, sometimes in the car and other times flying and pubic transport. Five years ago for example we the Amalfi coast of Italy. We stayed in four cities and used public transport to change cities every couple days.

This year was a special anniversary, so we wanted to do something out of the norm. We also had an exceedingly hectic six months prior to this opportunity to vacation, and really no time or maybe no energy to plan something. We found a last minute deal on the cruise, had a good tax return this year,  and decided to go for it. We needed to relax.

Pros:
We had free room service available and took advantage of it by having breakfast in our room nearly every morning. It was relaxing and easy. Two mornings we had to be up and moving early we didn't do it and I found the group dining room to be crowded, hard to find a table, and hassle ridden. God bless the wait staff hustling but it was crazy. A much greater selection of food was available in the dining room however, than what was on the menu for room service though.

I also took advantage of room service when we were deciding to eat later by ordering cheese and crackers, or cookies. It was wonderful to eat a light snack and watch the sea go by while sipping a hot tea. It was chilly up there so I enjoyed the tea service a lot. This was one of the more relaxing aspects.

No thinking needed. The agenda is laid out for you on the cruise. What things there are to do at what times and what time you can get off the boat to see the city. This is a season of my life I needed to not have to figure out what was next and this made it more relaxing. Granted I didn't take very much advantage of their offerings and mostly relaxed with my book.

Unpacking once and sleeping the same place. I think that made the trip much more relaxing. I think if you are trying to see a wide scope of places in a short trip cruising is probably much less harried than say a bus trip where you change hotels each night.

We were advised by several experienced cruisers to get a balcony and this turned out to be very good advice. It was really nice to watch the ports come and go or to step out and watch the sun or check the weather. It made our room much more appealing, a good refuge.

If you are a nervous traveler, cruising is a good option. The food is there and you don't have to second guess much of anything. You can even sign up for shore excursions  and be hand carried to see the important sites. It can be a no brainer.

Variety and Service. Our boat seemed full of people from all over the world and in the evenings we chose to randomly eat with different people which was very interesting. We ate with people from Denmark, South Africa, Ireland, England, and even a couple from the USA. A lot of the boat was people from the U.S. actually and because of that or the cruise company policy customer service was more like I am accustomed to in the U.S. and that was pleasant.

Cons:

Feeling herded like cattle. At the first embarkation I noticed it, we were in rows and rows of wrap around lines and lots of people were complaining. I mean we're essentially going to grown up Disneyland, so we should expect lines, right? Getting off the boat for the ports of call was definitely a herd feeling too. If you had an organized tour, you generally had a tight schedule to keep and for some that means fighting the other cattle to get ahead. The cruise people did a good job of efficiently unloading the boat but it was still 2,000 people to move.

We chose open seating for dinner and generally eat later so we never had to wait, but I noticed others waiting on occasion and wondered if you could run into the same crowded sensation with the food too if you weren't careful.

Expensive. All this hand carrying is not cheap. You get good value for your Euro or your Dollar but this was not our best value trip. Other than the buffet style restaurant and one other restaurant on board, the other eating places required a supplement between $10 per person all the way up to $89. We did not eat at the supplement locations and had good food throughout minus some soggy shrimp, but not as exotic as the first cruise I took. Perhaps though I am just a more seasoned traveler now. The food seemed heavy toward the American side but was generally good quality. The only beverages included were coffee, tea, and water. Soda, gourmet coffee, and cocktail drinkers beware. They would offer drinks at times that were like part of the show and after people took them the servers would come around and ask for your room card to charge you.

The excursions were, for me, shockingly expensive. I saw after the fact that you are paying quite a few people to help you handlers and tour guides, not to mention pre-planned private transport to very specific sites and entry tickets. So it has all been done for you - and that doesn't come cheap. We did two excursions and I will blog about those later.

Still under expensive: tips are not included and there are a ton of people waiting on you. They are doing a very good job and deserve to get paid properly and that involves tipping. The cruise company we went with charges you $130 per person for all the tips for everyone. This is after you get on and in addition to your cruise price. So it's all taken care of, but if you've never been before it might hit your budget if you didn't know.

Sales gimmicks. Everywhere you turned on the boat something was being sold or pushed. Paintings. Jewelery, Faberge Eggs, Russian nesting dolls, t-shirts from past and present cruises, photographs, photograph sittings, spa visits, drinks etc. I guess they must make some good money on all the extras or they wouldn't do it, but it felt a little shopping channel to me. Of course, you don't have to participate but it's always there.

We had a good time and for certain kinds of trips I would do a cruise again. The Norwegian fjords for example I think would be good to see from the water or anytime you are trying to get a lot of countries or a big country like China into a 10 day trip, a cruise would be an easier way to do that. You only dip your toe into the culture with say an 8 hour day trip to one city, but it's a nice taste and let's face it not all travelers are cut out for the deep immersion travel so this is a good way to visit on the lighter side with some hand carrying.

Viva la difference!
 

Valentine Dinner at Restaurante Rayuela

We chose the special menu for two at a tiny place near us in Alcala de Henares, Spain. It was classic but gourmeted up Spanish cuisine. Each plate was decorated with sauces in the shape of a heart. This was really yummy sauces in a place where sauce is rare so it was fun.

Starters
Shrimp on a stick fried in a shredded pastry like this but not sweet. I don't know what it's called.

Croquet de Jamon, homemade. It is a dried ham and bechamel sauce coated and fried. You can get these at nearly every restaurant in Spain but the homemade ones are best.

A little taste of the USA. Quesedilla of ground beef and a rich creamy melted cheese.

Salad: I can't remember all the Spanish words. It was goat cheese somehow toasted or carmelized on one side, tomato compote, mixed greens and raddichio (also unusual in a salad in the common places here), pumpkin seeds, tomatoes, and delightful mix of basalmic vinegar gel and other vinegars and oils and something slightly sweet. The flavor mix was really good.

First Course
Gula, gambas, y trigueros. That is baby eels (not real ones but think fake crab sticks), shrimp, and green asparagus, in a creamy sauce, sort of like a pasta with a sauce on it only baby eel sqigglies instead of spaghetti. This was some advanced eating for me.

Main Courses (yes there were two!)
Chiperones and yummy sauces. Here's a picture in case I can't explain. It's a tiny relative of the squid. The leggie bits have the ink in them and are a stronger flavor. Not my favorite bits. But the tiny meat steaks of the bodies were grilled and the Spanish prepare them so well. They are a common food here.

The next plate was a lovely plate of aged beef, a bit of gristly cut but again grilled very nicely with crunchy bits of sea salt on it. Very tasty and done what to me was pretty rare but that's what they call medium here "a punto" at the point of being cooked. It came with a tiny decorative dollop of mashed potatoes.

For dessert we had a rich gooey brownie with nuts and a scoop of homemade vanilla bean and I think amaretto ice cream.

Keep in mind each of these was a single plate that we shared but I assure you we did not go hungry at all. It was typical type of foods of Spain but dressed up. I understand that a more gourmet approach is coming en vogue here aand I think this was a taste of it but right here in our own corner of Madrid without going downtown.

Travel food hoarder

When I travel, for some reason I go into a food hoarder mode. It's not really conscious but I accept every bit of food offered me and keep it in my bag. I seem to have some deep seated idea that I don't consciously acknowledge that I don't know where my next meal is coming from so I bettter be prepared.

I recently took a late flight out and felt queazy while I was waiting so I bought some crackers. The moderately sized packet went in the bag after I had a few. I always buy my survival water as soon as I'm thru security, so that goes in the bag too.

On that trip, I arrived at a hotel and they messed up my entry key and it was 1 a.m. and they felt bad so they gave me a candy bar. Normally I'm not much of a candy bar person, but into the bag it went. There were complimentary cookie packets in the room. I ate one to take some medicne - and you guessed it into the bag with the rest.

The next day I caught a ride with some local friends to a city where we were to attend meetings. The local guys brought no nourishment for the journey and were amazed as I kept pulling things out of my bag and had enough for all three of us to have snacks on the way.

On a flight last week, they gave out little single cookie packets and I ate one and saved one, because you never know. The girl next to me offered hers and I took them and squirreled them away. So I had cookies for my sojourn, but I'm still packing those cookies two flights later. You never know, especially these days, if the airline will starve you or when a strange nautious moment might hit.

I have never as far as I know been deprived in the food category. I have been deprived of transportation or experienced a lack of nearby stores, so maybe my hoarding comes from that fear of no access.

The funny thing is I often arrive home with my little treasure trove of food stuffs and if there is no food in the house they may get eaten that first day. It's still simple survivalmat that point. If they don't get eaten that first day home, the hoarded cookies, pretzels or yogurt will languish and likely get thrown away months later, and yet I hoard as I go.

Are you going to eat that packet of peanuts? (I don't like them much, but you never know.)

Foodies, gourmaunds, and wanna-bes

Have you known a foodie? Are you a foodie? Do you disdain the chains for local places? Have you ever driven out of your way because the "fill in the blank" is so good at a particular place? Do you make things you've seen on the food channel?

I think we all have our foodie moments where we like something more from somewhere else, but there are people that are much more serious about this. I don't think it is a flaw at all. In fact, I have a touch of regret that I'm not a more adamant gourmet follower.

I do like things I make sometimes better than something I might get out. That will NEVER stop me from eating out though. You want to stop at Sonic? Okay, sure! It means I  don't have to cook.

I know people that don't order pizza from the standards (Papa Murphys, Ceasars, Pizza Hut, Dominoes). They have that good pizza place where they get it, usually actual Italians are involved.

These are the people you want with you if you want to eat good stuff. Maybe not cheap but it will be good eating. I want to be these people. I do; it's just that ultimately convenience is a stronger pull than my inner gourmand.

Our gourmand friends do not buy prebattered chicken at the grocery store, or frozen entrees. They are ring shoppers. They circle mostly the outside ring of grocery store where things are fresh and have to be assembled to create the perfect meal.

I have often one of these ring shoppers (not lately) but rather than out of pure foodie motives, it's because I'm cheap. But all that making things from scratch takes a long time. It does taste good usually, I have to admit.It can be cheaper depending on the ingredients. I wonder if the foodies always enjoy cooking  or just the results? Is it the yummy food or do they enjoy the journey?

One of my more guilty cooking escapes the last couple years has been....prechopped onions. Excessive I know. Cost ineffective as well. It just jump starts that homemade meal and helps me get off square one. Well, that is, if I'm actually cooking something REAL. See? I have foodie genetics recessed somewhere deep within me that prepared foods (boxed soup? fake potatoes anyone?) don't qualify as REAL. The difference between me and a foodie is I'll eat 'em anyway.

Real vs Fake

Coming out of a restaurant recently, I encountered chocolate mints. Hard candy like peppermints. This is just a waste of calories in my opinion. If I want chocolate flavor, I want chocolate, not hard candy doing it's impression of chocolate.

I love strawberries. That's my favorite fruit. Fruit being the key word. I don't like strawberry candy. That's not the real flavor of strawberries. It's just a sugary impression of something red. I'd really rather just wait for the real fruit to show up again.

I will eat fake things like watermelon or cinnamon Jolly Ranchers, but they don't taste to me like the real thing. They are just candies that I like the flavor.

I bought a cinnamon syrup to flavor steamers. I was thinking cinnamon like the spice I have in my cabinet. This is actually red-hot candy flavored "Cinnamon." It's not that it's bad, it's just not the real flavor. I have cinnamon tea that actually tastes like tea, not like candy cinnamon. So the real flavor does happen from time to time.

Can you think of other fake flavors that aren't, well, real?

Tea Snob

I drink tea all the time. When the air conditioning is too cold in the summer, I have tea. Whenever I'm cold in the winter, I have tea. When I need comfort, I have tea. When...well you get the picture.

But...I have stomach issues that make my caffeine intake limited. So I try to mostly drink decaf.

Most the time when I say this to someone they say, "No problem, I have herbal." These are words that make me cringe. I am a tea snob. I don't want berries and herbs; I want tea.  Now, if I'm truly honest, I do drink some herbals, peppermint for instance. I don't like hibiscus and for some reason this seems to be a primary ingredient in nearly all herbals, especially Celestial Seasonings. I don't like chamomile; I'll drink it but not a big fan of grassy flavors.

Not really a big fan of green tea, but if it is weak I like it okay. Red tea also known as Rooibos that is an herb from Africa. I kind of think it comes from a tree because it tastes woody. (I have no idea if that is true.) I don't mind the wood flavor and if they add cinnamon, vanilla or other nice flavors to it, it's pretty good. And naturally caffeine free.

This whole naturally decaf thing perplexes me. What I really want is black tea that is decaf in a host of flavors. But lately everyone is in to naturally decaf, but then everyone is into natural organic everything.  I just want Earl or Lady Grey, English, Irish Breakfast, Cinnamon, and others in BLACK tea. Decaf.

But in a pinch, I go for green which has less caffeine. White tea has even less caffeine and I go there too, it's not as common to find though. They add flowery flavors to it too, but it has some nice options. It's usually expensive.

And please for all you coffee drinkers out there, for the love of all hot beverages, do not serve me tea out of a coffee pot or carafe that has been used for coffee. It tastes like coffee. I'm just saying. Yes, I'm a tea snob.

Traditional Foods says who?

What's on your table for the holidays? Same thing for Christmas and Thanksgiving? Do you cringe if your "traditional" foods aren't there? I overheard someone recently say they just get a turkey breast and do that for Thanksgiving and I thought, "how sad." Then I realized my own food filter ideas were at work.

Traditional Thanksgiving for me is as follows. Turkey, a big whole golden bird. I'm flexible on where the stuffing is at (in or out of the bird) what with health concerns and all. Some people are not flexible on this. But DO note there IS stuffing.  Gotta be mashed potatoes and gravy. I really prefer REAL gravy, it can be supplemented by some broth of course, but not the mix stuff (oh Lord, I sound like my grandpa!).

Rolls, I would say are a traditional Thanksgiving table item. I'm not major on them because at my age I gotta save calories for the important stuff. I'm in charge of bringing rolls this year. Much to my mom's disappointment (though to her credit she didn't say it outloud exactly) I'm not making them from scratch. I don't think it's the time as much as the mental energy right now.

Cranberry sauce, traditional gotta be on the table. I'm not a fan and don't eat it but it's gotta be there. At the Hartman house, it is made from scratch and actually looks appetizing compared ot the can shape stuff which is sort of fascinating. Maybe I'll try some this year.

Vegetable? I don't have a vegetable in my turkey tradition slot in my brain. I know for many this space is filled with the infamous green bean casserole. I suspect I may the only North American who doesn't care for this that much. Love green beans, but the creamy action in there isn't my favorite. I'll eat it, but saute my green beans in a little bacon fat and I'm happy. But I would even be at peace with another vegetable on the table. No tradition for me here.

Salad. Totally optional. Not tradition for me. Black olives are a side item that I expect often but I think that is left over from my childhood more than their actual presence.

Pumpkin pie is a no brainer of course for dessert. I love pecan pie but didn't always have it growing up with Thanksgiving, but I would say those are the two that need to be on the dessert table.

I have a friend who always has homemade noodles with the Turkey traditional dinner. It's not thanksgiving for her without noodles. What are your gotta haves? What is traditional for you?