Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Oyster stuffing, ham, turkey, green bean casserole, corn pudding, sweet potato pie and all the relatives crowded around the table

My grandmother's stuffing is a highlight of Thanksgiving. I make it now, but I remember as a kid, at her house, she's have a small casserole dish of it on the stove and she'd pick at it all throughout the meal preparation. It was her little treat!

Thanksgiving day, 1965. That morning, a neighbor had brought my dead kitty to us in a cardboard box on a little red wagon. I was devastated. That afternoon, the parents of the guy my older sister was going with (and would later marry) took our family out to T-day dinner. My future brother in law's father sat next to me, and poured me a glass of red wine to have with dinner. I finished it, and said I liked it. "That's burgundy!" He said. I still like it.

We got a frozen 18 lb turkey for free one year... but didn't anticipate how long it would take to thaw! We ended up having to wait for our thanksgiving dinner for an extra day so it would get up to temperature. When we asked other people what they did, they decided to stick their turkey in the shower!!

My very first brined turkey has to be my favorite food memory for thanksgiving.

I think my family was a bit non-traditional in a lot of ways and frequently this was shown by what was on the table for the "major" holidays. (My family arguably celebrated EVERY holiday whatever the denomination) One Thanksgiving my mom decided she didn't want to go through the trouble of preparing a turkey...so instead she spent the day making stuffed clams, crab legs and sushi. How is that easier?!?! It was an awesome dinner nonetheless!

Converting my then-fiance's parents to brussel sprouts. I make an awesome hash that the midwestern meat-and-potatoes crowd liked. Muahaha!

Not the best, but certainly the most memorable, and probably the family's favorite. I "started" on Thanksgiving morning. Which became the talk of the table - much to my horror - among all twelve of the guests. And now, twelve years later, I can't go a Thanksgiving without someone bringing it up and Mom telling the story, and me sitting red-faced at the table, wishing the ground would open up and swallow me.

Each year, my husband always makes a feast on Thanksgiving - enough food for 30 people for the two of us. I'm not exaggerating.

We always just buy a breast since I don't eat turkey, esp. white meat. A couple years ago, he decided to do a whole turkey and bought a MONSTER turkey a day or so before Thanksgiving.

We bought a roasting pan that didn't fit the turkey, so we had to go out and get another one.

He spent most of the day before and all Thanksgiving day cooking sides.

On Thanksgiving day, the turkey was still frozen solid. We also found out our very tiny oven did not fit the enormous roasting pan -- depth and height. In fact, the oven isn't deep enough to fit a standard length cookie sheet.

Fortunately, none of the other dishes he made hinged on the turkey being made, so we ended up with sides for dinner. It was quite filling since he made up nearly 15 sides and we had 3 pies.

Oh man. Mine would have to be the extremely hungover Thanksgiving that I spent with my then-boyfriends' (now husbands) family. I was about 19 (yeah, I know...), and we had gone to a big party at a friends' house the night before. Thanksgiving morning it took me forever to get ready, because I had to keep lying down on the bathroom floor to avoid getting sick. So, we're at dinner, and I'm so nauseous/headachy I can barely manage to sit at the table, and here are his grandmas (both of them!) prodding me to eat more. "Here, have some green bean casserole. How about some gravy? Jello salad?" UGH. I found out later that his entire family knew what was up, except the grandmas...

the time my brother fell asleep face first in his mashed potatoes because he didn't want to leave the table while the adults were still talking!

Back in 1975, at 16 years old, I told my folks that I would be taking care of the holiday dinner- after some raised eyebrows and wisecrack comments, (I think my parents secretly planned to visit a friend if catastrophe prevailed) I was granted free range of the kitchen. Much to everyone's surprise, I pulled it off! Down to fluffy cloverleaf rolls and pumpkin pie. I still have the Betty Crocker and Joy of Cooking that I gleaned the recipes and knowledge from as momentos of the feat. Without fail, every year in dinner table conversation that year comes up.

I guess the best one I can think of is when I asked my daughter to pick up the turkey from the store and she came home with a chicken! We had a good laugh over that one!