Window cleaner can be a game-changer for your housekeeping routine. Along with cleaning everything from your windows to your shower tile, this bright blue household staple is slightly less abrasive than most other multi-purpose sprays — making it great for use on more fragile surfaces.
Sorry, Cyber Monday, but it appears your reign was brief. These days, online shopping deals are launching earlier and earlier, and now Cyber Monday has to share billing with an entire week of deals, starting the Monday before Thanksgiving. That includes Amazon, of course, which actually launched early Black Friday deals on November 1. (Christmas isn’t the only thing that comes earlier and earlier these days.) Now that Black Friday week is officially here, they’re rolling out even more deals, every day.
See below for our favorite picks. We’ll keep updating as more are made available.
Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and basically everything between Thanksgiving and Christmas seem to be about spending money — even the best of sales requires a little bit of cash on hand. But there’s a saving grace hidden among the spend, spend, spend mentality, and it’s the thing that will keep you sane as you rush from store to store looking for the cheapest stand mixer and the best deal on an Instant Pot: free food.
Plenty of places offer gift card deals — buy $25 or $50 in gift cards and get a little more to spend on yourself (BurgerFi, Carraba’s Italian Grill, Bonefish Grill, The Cheesecake Factory), but there are better deals to be had, especially if you weren’t already planning to gift restaurant gift cards (but if you were, definitely look for deals).
Growing up, nearly all Thanksgiving dinners were spent at my grandma’s house, and in classic potluck style; everyone brought the sides and desserts so her only duty in the kitchen was the turkey and gravy. For me, this meant a morning making several dishes we could easily pack up and that would handle the drive to our holiday dinner.
This year I’m drawing on all those helpful tips I’ve picked up throughout the years as I ready to prep some of these delicious dishes. No matter what your schedule or how far you’re traveling, these five make-ahead Thanksgiving sides are sure to wow the crowd around the table.
We asked Marge to tackle one of Kitchn’s most divisive questions we’ve ever received: Is it OK to ask your friend for money for Thanksgiving?
Dear Marge,
A friend just invited me to his home for Thanksgiving dinner — and asked me to pay $50 upfront. I understand that hosting can be expensive, and I wouldn’t mind being asked to bring a dish, but asking guests for cash seems incredibly rude. Am I crazy to be a bit miffed? Has anyone else experienced this? If so, how do you handle it?
Should I tell my friend that this is not the norm?
– Pay to Play
Just like this past April, the CDC is once again warning consumers to stay away from romaine lettuce due to an E.coli outbreak. “Consumers who have any type of romaine lettuce in their home should not eat it and should throw it away, even if some of it was eaten and no one has gotten sick,” the CDC explains in their announcement on Tuesday.
“How long does it take to microwave a 25lb turkey?” Carlota Andrés messaged to the family WhatsApp. Her famous father, chef, and humanitarian José Andrés, responded, aghast, in a mixture of English and Spanish that encompasses a horror perhaps not able to be contained in just one language. In fact, the younger Andrés was simply enacting the same prank that other young adults around the country have been all week.
I first saw the viral “microwaving a turkey” meme on Instagram, where my friend had posted a screenshot of her hilarious conversation with her mom. (If you aren’t aware of the trend, people are texting their moms asking how long it would take to cook a 25-pound turkey in the microwave in hopes of getting a funny response, then posting a photo of the conversation on social media.)
To be honest, I was less concerned about the fact that she was planning on microwaving her turkey and more upset that I thought I hadn’t been invited to her (fake) Friendsgiving. But after seeing a few more very similar posts, I quickly realized I had fallen prey to a meme.
I assumed it was all a joke. You can’t actually cook a turkey in the microwave, right? But although people were playing a joke on their moms, the actual act of microwaving a turkey can be done successfully. According to the USDA, it’s one of the many ways you can cook your Thanksgiving bird. Here’s how long it would actually take.
This past Saturday, we hosted our second Friendsgiving, stuffing 17 people in an apartment that has no business holding 17 people, but it’s okay, there’s wine for that. Our first one was in 2016; you can read about it here. I took 2017 off because I was a teensy bit busy book touring for Smitten Kitchen Every Day** It was fun to be back.
When having friends over, I like to get everything done that I can in advance and I do this for completely selfish reasons: I want to enjoy my party, too, and I can’t if I’m scrambling around all day and am bone tired by the time food comes out. But last week was abnormally busy and I only got to grocery shopping on Thursday, only to discover that one week before Thanksgiving, it’s like tumbleweeds, the lull before the weekend stampede, all past-prime rosemary and other sadness. I almost cancelled but my husband miraculously found almost everything that evening, and instead I did a very beautiful, highly recommended thing: I nixed a few things on the planned menu and swapped more complicated ones for simpler recipes with shorter ingredient lists but high reward. Here’s the menu, a few details, and completely random tips:
Kitchn’s Delicious Links column highlights recipes we’re excited about from the bloggers we love. Follow along every weekday as we post our favorites.
Growing up in the Midwest gave me a few habits that set me apart from my coastal peers, including a firm conviction that “Ope!” is a real word, a tendency to begin and/or end every sentence with “sorry,” and an intense and unshakable love of casseroles. I can’t imagine how anyone gets through winter, or large family get-togethers, without a big dish of Kentucky hot brown or an enormous tuna-noodle casserole with crushed potato chips on top.