Thanksgiving Alternatives

Two absurdly fucking simple holiday recipes to save you from indulgence, suspicion, and butter:

1) Add 1 cup water to a bag of frozen cranberries and bring to a boil. Simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in sugar substitute of choice.

2) Simmer 3-4 peeled and cubed sweet potatoes until soft. Slowly add a 1/4 cup skim milk or milk substitute while you mash them. Sprinkle cinnamon and nutmeg or coriander and cumin to taste.

Diet cheerleader sites estimate 70 calories an hour while cooking. I understand the fear of such overt and mandatory gluttony, but Thanksgiving is not the looming terror we've built up in our minds and expressed on support boards. My house is so full of extended family, often I sit down to eat when the first group to load their plates get up for seconds. Spend the day offering help and popping peas into your mouth and nobody tends to judge your safety foods. At least that's been my experience. Now that I'm older, my usual routine of disappearing as the food comes out to entertain my young cousins isn't as appealing. The card their family sent for my birthday read: "Happy B-Day, you skinny bitch! (I mean that in the nicest possible way.)" They haven't seen me in a year since I skipped the bathing suit competition during their mini-reunion in Cancun this summer. They don't know I'm a few pounds less than my highest weight ever or my last coping mechanism before losing the capacity to feel emotions is gone. I can't purge Thanksgiving dinner. I can't blithely restrict knowing any slip ups fall into the ejection seat. Still, it's no different than any other meal with witnesses. Again I'm just the weird one, the picky eater, already refusing a slice of the pork pie the maternal grandparents brought, non merci, Mémère.

Fearing skinless white meat makes you the real turkey!