Stuffing For Your Brain: The Sanity Squad Thanksgiving Special

What could possibly be better than turkey, football and the Walmart Midnight Madness sales? The Sanity Squad Thanksgiving Special podcast, that’s what.

Four of the best Thanksgving turkeys ever brought together discuss the meaning of the holiday, American values and what we have to be grateful for, in addition to that 39 cent a pound, hormone and steroid injected bird you willingly force feed down the throats of blameless, unsuspecting innocent children.

For the best in organic and free range thinking (by brilliant minds who under no circumstances would ever poison or use cattle prods to discipline children), listen to Dr Sanity, Shrinkwrapped, Neo-neocon and the channeled and thickly accented voice of three dead pyschiatrists on the Sanity Squad podcast.

In honor of the holiday, we are pleased to present a video of a past Sanity Squad Thanksgiving special.

More Thanksgiving Horror Stories!

Appetite Suppressant

“When my daughter, Madison, was about 2 years old, I invited my entire extended family to my home for my first real Thanksgiving dinner. The thing was, I also work full-time as a lawyer, and was pregnant with my second baby on top of it all. I was pretty stressed out. So I woke up at the crack of dawn and was slaving away — making stuffing, basting, mashing potatoes — when Madison started vomiting. She started in the kitchen (nowhere near the stuffing), then proceeded to the dining room, then in her bed a few times. This was not helping my morning sickness. My mom, sister, neighbor, and husband pitched in on vomit-cleaning and sheet-changing, so everything was ready on schedule…but frankly, by then, we’d all lost our appetites. The only one who enjoyed that Thanksgiving was my dad, who just sat and watched the game the whole time!” — Ellen, 37, Philadelphia Thanks for the Memories “I was the oldest of the grandchildren in my family, and we kids knew my grandmother was not the greatest cook. But we did have fond, fond memories of this one great cookie she made: the black-and-white kind, frosted with half-vanilla and half-chocolate icing. The grown-ups told us, “You’re remembering those wrong. They were absolutely vile.” But we insisted they’d been manna from Heaven. Well, just after I graduated college, I had the bright idea of going into Grandma’s old recipe files and making the cookies. Which I did. Then I carried them in my lap on the plane to Cleveland, where I opened the box to screams of joy. We all dug in. Took a taste. And screamed again — in disgust. The grown-ups were right: the cookies were so sickly sweet that only a 6-year-old could love them. And I had ruined everyone’s sweet memories of them because I just couldn’t let sleeping dogs lie. At least the grown-ups enjoyed themselves — laughing at our shattered memories. Hmph.” — Marjorie, 35, New York City First Impressions “It was time to meet my new boyfriend’s family, so we went to his home for Thanksgiving. The woman who would eventually become my mother-in-law piled so much food on my plate, there was no way I could finish it all. I did what I could, then just stared helplessly at the mountain of turkey, stuffing, and canned cranberries. Despite my heroically pushing the food around on my plate, she noticed I wasn’t eating and asked what was wrong. “The food is delicious, but I’m full,” I admitted, and she promptly removed my plate from the table and put it on the floor for the dog before dinner was over. What a fantastic first impression — for both of us!” — Betsy, 39, Maplewood, New Jersey Giving Thanks “One November, my brother and I went to Florida to see our father and extended family. On Thanksgiving Day, my grandmother started cooking at 8 a.m. and knocking back the scotches at 10 a.m. — because she was ‘working.’ Dinner was at 4 p.m. We gathered at the table, all 19 of us, tons of delicious food ready for our consumption. My dad, who is the principal of a parochial school, had us bow our heads and said a very moving prayer about gratitude and family, and brought tears to everyone’s eyes at the ‘amen.’ We sat in loving silence for a moment, each reflecting on the heartfelt words, and my grandmother announced (boozily), ‘You all better eat my goddamned turnips!’” — Laura, 36, New York City Not a Martha Moment “My sweetie and I were hosting our first Thanksgiving. Everyone was coming: my parents, our friends, even a few neighbors. To mark the occasion, we went out the week before and bought a Le Creuset baking pan, in cheerful cherry red. We ceremoniously put the turkey in the oven and were busy preparing the rest of the meal when we heard a resounding crack. Our spanking-new, $125 pan had split down the middle, leaving the turkey forlornly resting on the oven rack. We had to run out, find an open grocery store, and put our turkey on a cheap aluminum pan — not the effect we’d been going for. Le Creuset replaced the red pan, but couldn’t fix our red faces!” — Karen, 27, Brooklyn, New York Brand-New You? “I had just started dating a new guy. It was going well, so I invited him over to the Thanksgiving shindig I was hosting at my place. Since the summer I’d been shedding pounds over the past few months from the combination of being broke and brokenhearted (over a different guy). As a result, I hadn’t been so social and hadn’t seen a lot of friends for a while. The new boy shows up, and then suddenly so does a crush of people. Friends are greeting me immediately, before bothering to introduce themselves to him. Consequently, he hears the following: ‘Oh my God what happened to you? You lost so much weight!’ ‘Jesus, where did the rest of you go?’ and, my personal favorite: ‘Wow, are you on the Zone again?’ (the ‘again’ was the kicker). To every question I answered sweetly ‘meet my date, Michael’ and everyone clammed up. He turned to me after and said, ‘My God, what did you used to look like?’ Nice.” – Rachel, 30, Phoenix Oops, I Said It Again “We were at my very buttoned-up aunt and uncle’s house. They set up their Thanksgiving table buffet-style. My dad and I were standing next to it, trying to make stilted conversation (we really don’t have much in common with them). My uncle said, ‘I guess we’re supposed to go in a circle.’ And I said, ‘Yes, and then we can all do a circle dance.’ Only I did not say the word ‘dance.’ Lord help me, for some unknown reason, the word I said was ‘jerk.’ It was like I had a sudden attack of Tourette’s syndrome and literally we all just sort of stared at the space where my words had flown out of my mouth. Finally, my uncle proceeded to start loading up his plate without comment, as my dad stared straight ahead, unsure whether to laugh or beat me to a quivering pulp. At this point, we laugh, but I think it was touch-and-go there for a while.” — Liz, 42, Los Angeles Take-Out Thanksgiving “My Thanksgiving story isn’t exactly a disaster. It’s more of a mystery. My sister and I took the bus home for the holiday, and we arrived a little early. We were sitting in front of the mall near our home, waiting for our dad to pick us up, when lo and behold, across the street, we see our aunt and uncle’s car parked in front of a pizzeria. Then, from the pizzeria, we see my aunt, uncle, and two cousins. Carrying a pizza. Running to their car. Unsure what to do, we just sat there, slack-jawed, as they drove away. Dad picked us up, we went home, and 10 minutes later, they drove up, cheerful as you please. They didn’t eat any appetizers, but seemed to fill up on a normal amount of dinner…did they hate our food? Did they not like to eat with us? What was their deal? We’ve never had the nerve to ask.” – Emily, 31, San Francisco Recipe for Success “Thanksgiving horror stories? I have none. My turkeys always turn out perfectly. I find the key to family holiday success is buying as much wine as you think you need, and then doubling it.” – Ann, 36, Miami, Ohio

Back By Request: A Cat In The Turkey! (And other Thanksgiving horror stories)

Back by popular request…one of our Thanksgiving post from last year.

 

“We asked readers if their Turkey Day celebrations would put Martha Stewart to shame.

And we’re oh so thankful they said, “You’ve got to be kidding.” Seems their Thanksgiving turkeys are sometimes perfectly brown, but disgustingly raw, and from time to time their beautifully-cooked dishes make big-time messes (Can you say exploding turkey?).

One reader responded with a turkey tale involving a cat’s tail, and others told of dogs who helped themselves to turkeys. Another reader told of a flaming appliance, one told of unexpected guests and still another relayed a horror story involving a turkey’s claw.

So check out these holiday mishaps, and you’re sure to feel better about your own straight-out-of-a-sitcom feasts:

Thanksgiving tail

Dottie King of Southside was surprised to find a moving part inside her turkey one year.

“We were clearing the table after a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner,” says King, who lives in Highland Park. “As I entered the kitchen, I saw a tail sticking out of the turkey carcass. A closer look revealed Katy the cat crouched inside the bird eating bits of turkey and dressing. She emerged very pleased with herself and shimmering with turkey grease and with dressing clinging to her whiskers.”

Canine catastrophes

Debbie Patterson of McCalla tells about the year her parents rescued their turkey from a four-legged thief.

“The bird was thawing on the back porch when the neighbor’s bird dog rustled it,” she says. “My parents liberated the turkey from the dog, and it was served. Everyone was told that it was the `other turkey’ that was cooked… They concocted the `other turkey’ idea to prevent a boycott of the meal.”

Mary Estock of Birmingham remembers a similar experience. Her sister, Gena Shimon of Petersburg, Tenn., and her late brother-in-law, Dale, were bringing the star entree. When they arrived, her sister showed her the “mangled smoked turkey, missing a drumstick and a wing.” Seems they’d left the boxed turkey in their open-bed truck while she dashed to the store. Upon return, she discovered a “bouquet of waving tails” in the back of the truck. The couple wrestled the turkey from the dogs, then headed to Estock’s house.

Shimon and her hosts agreed there was no time to replace the bird, so they rinsed it, cut away the gnawed parts and sliced the remains. After dinner, they ‘fessed up, and everyone laughed about the “best doggoned turkey they’d ever eaten.”

Hot stuff

Jennifer Brunner of Hoover enlisted a friend’s help with her first turkey.

“She told me she used a whole stick of butter to coat the turkey so it would be nice and brown,” Brunner says. “This sounded logical to me, so I put the turkey in a pan and used a stick-and-a-half, because it was a big turkey.” When her guests arrived, Brunner opened the oven door.

“The butter from the turkey had dripped down onto the heating element and flames were shooting out,” she says. “The entire oven is on fire.”

The guests converged in the kitchen, where someone grabbed a fire extinguisher and took aim at the turkey. “Fortunately, my husband kept his head and yelled, `Not on the turkey!’ He grabbed a box of baking soda and threw it on the fire… Believe it or not, the turkey wasn’t burned at all.”

You can’t say she didn’t try

During the first years of her marriage, Phyllis Barrett of Cropwell managed to avoid preparing the Thanksgiving Day feast by dining with relatives. Her luck ran out, though, when her family was transferred across the country.

“The first encounter with the big bird was traumatic,” she says. “I put it in the bathtub to thaw, and my 2-year-old son climbed in with it and lathered it with Camay.”

Her troubles didn’t end there.

“I got up at dawn and wrestled with it for three hours before I managed to get it stuffed, trussed and in the oven. Hours later, I pulled it out, roasted to perfection – or so I thought, until my husband said the blessing and carved a bleeding bird! I will always remember how my sympathetic 4-year-old daughter patted me softly and said, ‘Don’t cry, Mama.’”

Surprise inside

Ginger Talbert of north Shelby County didn’t know until after the fact, that turkeys include plastic-wrapped extras inside.

“I noticed when I took it out of the oven and there was a strange-looking piece of `stuff’ coming from the turkey’s bottom,” she says.

Teresa Evans of Smoke Rise also relayed an incident involving an extra ingredient.

“Several years ago, when companies started putting pop-up indicators in turkeys to show they were done, I walked into the kitchen to find my mother and daddy tightly huddled around the sink,” Evans says. “As I got closer I realized they were frantically trying to dig the temperature indicator out of the turkey. My parents thought the turkey had been shot with ‘that thing’ to kill it.”

And you are …

A couple of years ago, Lauren and Joel Brooks, a director of a college ministry, extended a potluck Thanksgiving dinner invitation to students with no place to celebrate. A couple of hours after the meal, two girls showed up on their doorstep, “a gallon of tea in hand.”

“Joel welcomed them and assured them there were plenty of leftovers,” she says. “They sat and talked with Joel for a few minutes and then it became quite obvious they were not part of the ministry… They kept asking, `Now, who else is here?’

Turns out they’d been invited to “a friend of a friend’s” house, also in Crestwood, also yellow and also on top of a hill.

“They ran out quickly and told Joel to keep the tea,” she says.

Not-so-happy meal

“In 1992, we were an abbreviated family living in Texas – my husband, his brother, Stan, our sister-in-law, Darleen and their children, Kelly and Kyle,” says Deborah Limerick of Hoover. She was determined to mimic the large family gatherings they used to enjoy in Mississippi, so she set a beautifully-decorated table and included all the quintessential recipes, including “cornbread dressing per Ma Nell’s directions.”

“After everyone was inside the door that I sensed something wasn’t quite right,” Limerick says. “Then I saw the box… It was a McDonald’s Happy Meal.”

The next Thanksgiving, the “Aunt Deb Thanksgiving Rules” went into effect, including “No Happy Meals at Thanksgiving,” she says.

Slippery situations

Lexi Ambrose of Bessemer offers a messy tale that ends with a hairy situation.

“One Thanksgiving my mom and dad came to celebrate the holiday with us and to meet their granddaughter’s fiance,” she says. Her mother, who headed the cafeteria-style line, was scooping green bean casserole onto her plate when her father tried to slip into place behind her.

“He accidentally pushed her off-balance, and the green-bean casserole went flying across the room along with her,” Ambrose says. “As she fell, her wig came off and landed in the green beans. My daughter’s fiance picked up the green-bean laced hair, and with a suppressed grin handed it back to my mom and said, `Madam, I think you dropped something.’”

About 10 years ago, Mike McDavid of Mountain Brook broke out his new charcoal smoker for the Thanksgiving turkey.

“It was the most beautiful turkey I’ve ever cooked,” he says. Trouble is, it was cooked outside in 10-degree weather. “I sliced into it, and it was raw.”

He didn’t give up, though.

“I got my wife to turn the microwave on its back, and I crammed this 25-pound turkey into the microwave and set it for 45 minutes,” McDavid says. “When I opened the door, about two gallons of turkey juice blew out of that microwave, all over the kitchen floor. We had to literally skate on turkey gravy to finish getting everything ready.”

Case of the missing plate

As a child, Mary Lou Davis of Vestavia Hills spent Thanksgivings with her cousins at her grandparents’ house at Conecuh National Forest. The year she was 13, she filled her plate and joined the older teens.

“I perched daintily on a chair, then realized I had forgotten utensils,” she says. “I set my plate down and went to retrieve a fork. When I returned and sat in my chair, I found my loaded plate had disappeared.

“OK, y’all,” I said, “What did you do with it?”

After a few rounds of “We didn’t take it,” and “Yes, you did,” Davis felt something warm and wet seeping into the seat of her pants. Then one of her cousins pointed out what was now obvious – “You’re sitting on your plate!”

Hold on

Judy White’s then-boyfriend, now-husband, Gary, wanted to try out his new smoker on one of his freshly-slain birds. She squeamishly retrieved a turkey from the refrigerator, rinsed it, and delivered it to him on a plate.

“Soon afterward, he indicated that he thought the bird was done, and I delivered a platter so we could remove it from the grill,” the Birmingham woman says. “As he lifted the bird from the grill, I stared, frozen in horror. As the bird cooked, its claw contracted around one of the bars on the grill. Along with the bird, the whole grill surface was being lifted. `It’s… holding… on!’ I choked out, when I could speak. `Yes,’ he said, as he took a knife an chopped off its leg. I turned and fled into the kitchen, feeling quite ill, and when he asked me later why I wouldn’t try it, I confessed as I munched on my salad that I felt too emotionally involved with the bird.”

Still hungry?

“I believe that some Western antipathy towards Islam is due to decency. It is quite plausible that a generation that faced off against two totalitarianisms might be right about a third.”

Those words are from the opening paragraph of the thoughts of a western Muslim, Ali Eteraz.

His post is not profound, in an intellectual way, nor does he make any such pretense. In fact, it is more important than an exercise in intellectual curiosity. Eteraz expresses more thoughtful reflections. He refuses to respond to and contribute to the knee jerk reactions of what has become a  carefully nurtured adversarial and confrontational relationship of cultures/religions/societies.

His perceptions are far from perfect- he seems to lay the bulk of the blame for continued Muslim world failure on the record of western Colonialism- but they are a starting point. The importance of that cannot be understated. He challenges both Muslims and non Muslims to ‘lay down their arms’ and take a deep breath and take a step back.

Eteraz notes

Yes, I know that there was a time when the West went to ‘civilize’ and ended up conquering; when it went to ‘keep the dominoes upright’ and ended up slaughtering; when it went to ‘trade’ and ended up colonizing; when it went to ‘liberate’ and left civil war behind.

Although he goes on to speak of Vietnam, implying a particular American legacy, the fact remains that the colonial powers of Continental powers of France and Belgium, for example, left a legacy of countries laid to waste and in ruin to this very day. We discuss and take issue with some of the ideas discussed by Ali Eteraz in Guns Germs And Allah.

Eteraz goes on to make pointed references:

If, then, there are those in the West who challenge what passes for Islam today, on the basis of their humanity with the Muslim, then we Muslims must embrace them as our brothers. It is conceiveable, yes, that there are those in the West with as much sadomasochim (or courage, if you will), as the reformists of Islam; with as great a penchant for human rights as the reformists of Islam; with as great a willingness to face off against the edifice of a corrupt theology as the reformists of Islam. We must embrace them as our brothers, be they Latino, Black, or dare I say, white; be they Hindu, Jew, Christian, or dare I say, secular-humanist. We — this is the ‘we’ that refers to all those who fight injustice — did not exclude such helpers when the evil was Soviet Union. We — this is the ‘we that refers to all those who fight injustice — did not exclude the helpers when the evil was Jim Crow. Nor when the evil was the patriarchy which denied female equality. In fact, if reformist Islam is to stand a chance, it has to be open to those who want to help. There has never been a case in history where change has occurred without participation by some members of the dominant discourse joining in the efforts of those who agitate for change [emp-SC&A].

Eteraz speaks a universal truth. If we in the west want to see a different Islam than the version espoused and preached by dangerous radicals, then we will have to participate in the liberation of Islam by offering ideas, values and principles that elevate Muslims. These ideas are not new to Islam.

If freedom is indeed a gift from God, then it is a gift for all mankind, regradless of color, creed or culture.