Thanksgiving at the Fioritto's

This was the first year in a while that the house wasn't full of college students on Thanksgiving. When I was a kid, my parents invited international students for the holiday and for the past four years my friends and I trekked down to Indiana for the good food and company.

This year it was just the four of us and my uncle, Mark (pictured below opening the wine we had with dinner).

Uncle Mark brought salmon that had been 'pickled', for lack of a better word, in a vodka, dill marinade. We ate it on pita chips with a bit of sour cream. It was great and just added to the dilemma of how much to eat before dinner to optimize the consumption of tasties. This year we had guacamole, jalapeño-artichoke dip, and the salmon for our pre-meal, football snacks.

In my opinion, Thanksgiving is not a visually appealing meal, but boy is it tasty. My mom's traditional menu includes turkey, mashed potatoes, candied yams, crock pot stuffing, orange-cranberry relish, and a vegetable of some sort--this year it was green beans (made ridiculously delicious with bacon drippings).