Happy Thanksgiving week, everybody.

We asked a few random folks to answer this question: 

Besides the turkey, which dish do you most look forward to at Thanksgiving dinner?

Doni Greenberg - Yeast rolls, candied cranberries, yams and pumpkin pie were all serious contenders. Then I thought of turkey. Turkey gets my vote. I love the way washing it is like bathing a baby. I love its adaptability: deep fried, roasted barbecued, brined, trussed or stuffed. I love the way one turkey has different colors of meat: white, sensible meat, and dark. I love the way it offers two drumsticks and two wing and two breast. … Nothing says Thanksgiving like turkey. And it helps that I learned to properly carve a turkey a few years ago.

Bruce Greenberg -  Pumpkin pie. OK, the truth is out, my sweet tooth rules my world.

Steve Brewer -  Dressing and gravy.

Max Brewer - Giblet gravy on the dressing.

Seth Brewer - Dressing and gravy, dude.

Linda Woodcook - OK, two of my most favorite Thanksgiving dishes that I always look forward to making is my Uncle Leo’s very special mashed potatoes (butter, half/half or whipping cream instead of milk, fresh green onions chopped fine & salt/pepper to taste) and my best friend’s cranberry relish.  UMMM, my taste buds can taste it already!!!

Yvonne Mazzotta - I love, love the pecan pie with heaps of whipped cream. The real stuff!

Uni Song - Morgan Song’s pumpkin pie.

Dugan Barr -  Yams. No marshmallows. Yecch.

Roger Casey -  Dressing.

Cathy Darling - Stuffing! Or rather, dressing, as I never stuff the bird, but bake the dressing separately - with gravy, of course.

Connie Strohmayer - Gravy, because turkey makes the best-flavored gravy! It can be drizzled over turkey slices, dressing, and mashed potatoes. For the more adventurous, it can even be poured over certain vegetables such as string beans. Yummy! 

Staci Bertagna - It is a toss-up between good ole pumpkin pie and our traditional boccoli casserole. Now, I must tell you that last year my mom did not make the broccoli casserole and I honestly pouted all day. Now I am reminding her every day that she is to make the broccoli casserole and not to forget!

Jeff Avery - For me the next best dish is the stuffing. After that it’s pie - pumpkin and pecan! Hope you and your family have the best Thanksgiving yet!

Charles Price - A big. juicy cheeseburger. Honest. After turkey and dressing and sweet potatos and green beans and all the other trappings, I often feel all the moisture has been sucked out of my body by entirely too much poultry and bread crumbs… and then thoughts turn to medium rare beef, mayonnaise, tomatoes, pickles, and sharp cheddar. So, obviously, sometime we just skip the turkey thing altogether. 

Bill Siemer - Dressing and gravy.

Celeste White - I’m a traditionalist when it comes to Thanksgiving, serving the same stuffing recipe that my mother used to.  And that is my very favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner:  stuffing with gravy.  I enjoy the turkey, but honestly, it’s really more of a delivery system for stuffing and an essential ingredient for the gravy for me.  Second runner-up:  pumpkin pie.  I love a classic pumpkin pie.

Tori Pratt - Sweet Potato Anna.  My sister brought her to our Thanksgiving table a good twenty, twenty-five years ago. She, S.P.A., quickly gained priority seating and remains the youngest dish on record to be dolloped with the distinction, A Tradition. As traditions beget traditions, in every year since her inauguration there has been a musical chairs-like pile-up to see who gets to sit by her. …

Every year, that is, up until three years ago. Upon receiving this prompt, what dish do you most look forward to, I realized that the Pratt women (my mom, my sister and myself) have been without Sweet Potato Anna for coming on four Thanksgiving dinners. She, and the rest of the fixin’s, seem to have departed with my even sweeter Dad. … Hm, perhaps it’s time to stop running from the table. Maybe it’s time to take 4-5 sweet potatos and/or yams, slice them thinly and arrange them in a 10″ springform pan alternating layers of potato with butter, Celtic Sea Salt, pepper and coarsely grated parmesean cheese. All organic. Never margarine. … A woman of impeccable taste. … p.s. And, too, it’s a good idea to cook the thing.  This article fills in a lot of the blanks. … Except we never peel the potatos.

Erin Friedman - As far as I’m concerned, you can keep the turkey meat —  but don’t come between me and The Gravy.  Learning to prepare a good, rich turkey gravy was a rite of passage in my family, where the stuff was served, not in a Gravy Boat, but in a Gravy Yacht.  It’s a once-a-year treat that I will happily, blissfully indulge in.  

Mark Haddad - Stuffing and cranberry sauce.

Jon Berlinghoff - canned cranberry sauce. I always looked forward to this every year. The thing is my mom would usually only buy one or two cans, and with 4 older brothers and one sister, plus Dad, this stuff went QUICKLY. … You’d only get a couple of spoonfuls in and if you went for more someone would say, “Hey, don’t hog the cranberry sauce!” … And they’d proceed to fill up their plate with more of it. Funny how that worked… Anyway, I loved this stuff when I was younger because we’d usually only get it around Thanksgiving. It always felt so special to have it. … And then I remember a time years later when I was out on my own, and I saw the brand of cranberry sauce Mom used to buy and I grabbed a couple of cans. … When I got home I proceeded to eat about half a can, far more than I ever got with my brothers and sister around, but it just wasn’t the same. It just didn’t taste as good as it did back then. … I don’t know what Mom did to that canned cranberry sauce to make it taste so good, used a special spoon or bowl or something. I’ll have to buy some this year and get her to spoon it out to see if it brings back the magic.

Peter Hansen - Homemade bread and pumpkin pie.

Chris Fountain - Gee, the turkey skin doesn’t count?  It’s been a tradition with the females in my family since I was a little girl that we would fight (really actually wrestle) for the turkey skin.  Now with my own family of 4 boys, a husband and a daughter, it’s only me and my Hannah who fight (yes, actually wrestle) over that darned skin.  The guys just stare like we’re nuts, but then again, we probably are.  … Besides that, the stuffing.  My mom’s recipe which may have been her mom’s but it’s not written down anywhere.  We just throw the same old stuff in it.  I put it in a stuffing bag though, so I don’t have to scrape all the innards out to get it.  Turkey goo is just kind of yucky.  And I eat stuffing sandwiches with mustard, no turkey (unless there was some skin left) or ham… just stuffing and bread.  My hubby says he likes my stuffing, which he hated when he was growing up, so let’s see what he says. … Oh, and Judy Kupsky’s recipe for sweet potato pie.  When I make that, mmmmm.  Usually I don’t eat the sweet ’tatoes, but this is the best recipe I know of.

Larry Schaller - Mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, and sauerkraut, in that order.

Maurice Johannessen - Not a huge turkey fan, but love ham.

Ray John - I only eat dressing once a year. I like it so much that if Ann-Margret or Sophia Loren came into the room, I would ignore them and keep at my stuffing. I eat so much that I can only watch football and drink Manhattans for the rest of the day.

Tom Stovall - I love the stuffing, especially when there are mashed potatoes nearby. Oh, yes, but there is the cranberry sauce. And, oh, my, the green bean dish made with mushroom soup always slides down well. Oh, what the heck, I guess I need to settle on a good slice of cherry or lemon meringue pie. So many choices. Have a great Thanksgiving.

Mike Warren - That is easy. Pumpkin pie.

Dave Kehoe — This year, my favorite Thanksgiving dish is a non-spicy aardvark soup, flavored with a hint of basil and served in conjunction with wild rice (imported from Igo) over a crisp indentation of fresh baby palm fronds (compliments of the Hilltop Business Improvement District) - Bon appétit.

Peggy O’Lea - Green beans, slow cooked with bacon and onions - my grandmother’s recipe. I make my family sit with me to prepare the beans and start cooking them the night before. Gets us all in the “feast” mood.

Kathy Ann Anderson - My mother-in-law’s cranberry salad.

John Mancasola - That would be either the homemade cranberry sauce or blackberry pie. But what really makes it special is the fact that I get to spend it with family (including Molly, my five kids, her sisters and brothers-in-law, and 12 nieces and nephews in a massive sleep-over. Party on!

Diane Kempley - Love the dressing.

Dick Dickerson - Dish network, football.

Larry McKinney - It is pumpkin pie with whipped cream on top.

Gene Knaebel - I love the dressing with gravy. Of course that could be considered part of the turkey. The next would be lemon meringue pie like my mother used to make.

Larry Lees - Lemon pie. Oh, yeah!

Randy Smith - Mine is dried sweet corn, a reconstituting recipe with cream from my great-grandmother dating from the time before freezers and canning. It’s a lost commodity today, which we make ourselves, but we enjoy the special flavor and memory evoked each year. BTW, dried corn keeps forever in a jar without any preservative and is quite delicious out-of-hand like peanuts.

Kelly Brewer - My mother’s fluffy yeast rolls. If she has time after making the pecan pies, she makes a cherry cream cheese pie just for me. I could eat the whole thing. 

We’re asking you, too, which dish you like best (besides the turkey, of course).

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