Today is another free-for-all discussion of my TOP OF THE FOLD Curious Read for the week. Through the end of the year, these discussions will stay free. In the new year, I’m going to put the comments behind a pay wall because I’m jumping into full-time writing. (Scream!) Support me by signing up for a $21/yearly subscription to The Empathy List and join our chats. ;-)

Hello friends, Liz here.

Today’s TOP OF THE FOLD discussion is funny thanksgiving meal snafus.

The Washington Post’s food team asked readers to share stories of Thanksgiving meals gone awry.

Read it

#1

“Dinner was all ready, and the spread — Cornish hens and all the sides — was warming in the oven, said Lauren Krouse, a 30-year-old writer from Harrisonburg, Va. She and her husband were having a quiet holiday, just the two of them, when ‘for some reason, and we don’t know why, my husband flipped on the self-cleaning function.’ The oven door locked, with their Thanksgiving feast inside. Frantic Googling ensued. They unplugged the oven, but still couldn’t get the stubborn beast’s door to open.

Though she was tired from all the baking and cooking, Krouse soon switched functions herself and whipped up an alternate menu of steak with mushrooms and broccoli. Coda: That oven door never did open. Even repairmen tried and failed. Eventually, they moved the stove, which had started to stink, onto the porch while they waited for a replacement. ‘I like to think that somewhere, in some landfill, our Thanksgiving dinner is still encased in that darn oven: a beautiful fossilized feast,’ she said.”

Question

Have you had any disasters in the kitchen as you’ve made holiday meals? Any family histories of turkeys blowing up or pies run over on the way to grandma’s?

I’d love to hear your stories!

Leave a comment

More Curious Reads

#2

Tik tok-ers prefer awful recipes to good ones. Or at least, the algorithm does. —The Verge

#3

I have a new favorite Instagram account: “Live from Snacktime” is all cute kid quotes, all the time. Kids are geniuses, I’m telling you. —@LiveFromSnacktime

#4

Bank heists have gone out of style.—the Conversation

#5

Liz Bucar is thinking about religious appropriation—that is, borrowing practices from other traditions and adopting them to make your own syncretistic expression. Here’s how to borrow religious practices more gently and respectfully… which is helpful if, like me, you basically inherited a faith with no tradition or history attached. (Sigh.) —Religion News Service

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