Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I grew up in Toledo, but I don't think I ever had a White Tower burger...

Ham and cheddar cheese and a little mustard is the way I do it!

My parents don't have a lot of relatives in the States, so Thanksgivings when I was a kid involved cranberry sauce from the can (I rather liked it back then because I could cut along the ridges), mashed potatoes from the box, and storebought pies. I loved it anyways, and I'm sure it made cooking a lot easier on my mom.

Now that my sister and I are older and can help out with the cooking, we've transitioned to making cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes from scratch since they're not so difficult, but no one has been willing to put in the effort to make pies yet...

In any case, I'm all for semi-homemade if it allows you to stay sane and actually enjoy the holiday.

Shandong lamian (cousin of the Japanese ramen!) and fried rice (any kind, as long as it's salty and delicious).

My mom for most of the great homestyle Chinese dishes that I still try futilely to recreate and Julia Child and Jacques Pepin for most everything else - I spent many a weekend as a kid watching PBS!