What's for dinner?

Hey, Saturday. Happy Saturday evening. Welcome to another episode of Daily Mind. I'm your host.

How's everybody Saturday going? I know Minds was somewhat busy a little early. Yeah, just a lot of moving pieces and stuff like that. Slowly getting ready for Thanksgiving this week coming up.

You know, this week is what kicks off the holiday season, I guess you could say, right? It seemed like October just came and went, man. Halloween was just by. It's kind of crazy when you think about it.

So tonight, I want to talk about Thanksgiving when it comes to meals, food, preparation, stuff like that. What inspired this was this morning, my buddy and I were, we found out about a free turkey giveaway here in town. And, of course, with social media and where to mop, where it gets around real quick. So, you know, when you go to these free food giveaways, turkey giveaways and whatnot, you know you've got to be there early, right?

Especially with the way things are in the economy. People just need an extra boost, right? So, but these things, you've got to be there early. So we took a stab in the dark to try to get a turkey, right?

Needless to say, mission failed. I mean, we get to that place. And, I mean, when I say this line was long, you would think they were giving away free gas, too. There was two lines merging into one road, and one street had, I kid you not, probably at least two, almost three blocks of cars.

The main road had went all the way to the end of the block. I mean, like, at the end of the road, and we're talking blocks and blocks away. And we sat there, and we were like, you know what? No, we're just going to go buy a turkey.

Which was my idea, anyway, just go buy a turkey. We happened to find a 14-pound turkey at Publix. For those who don't know what Publix is up north, you go down south, we'll go to Florida. Publix is a very awesome supermarket.

It's a bit pricey, but you get good quality stuff there. So we found a turkey for 49 cents a pound, right? Got us a nice 14-pound bird. Now, mind you, Publix, again, I just said it's expensive.

So it was quite of a shock to find this. And we found out about this through word of mouth, right? That's all it takes. Social media, a phone call, a spouse to be like, hey, guess what?

You need to go to this place and go grab this, because this costs this much. And it worked out. So right now, we're still getting on trimmings and stuff like that. At least we got the bird, because, I mean, you got to get the bird, right?

Especially, like, when it gets close, everybody buys turkeys out like crazy. And you get stuck with this asthmatic-looking, looks like it's on life support-type turkey. Like, yeah, you get the small one. But we didn't notice ham, for some reason, is expensive, right?

We went, again, Publix, and we found ham. Oh, man, it was more than a turkey. Like, what's going on? Is there, like, a pork shortage?

Or is there people buying ham? Is there a high demand for ham? I don't know what's going on, but, yeah, it was just kind of crazy. So Thanksgiving, right?

You know, it's that holiday everybody gets together, have a grand old, you know, dinner. Everybody say what they're thankful for and stuff like that. But, you know, what goes into Thanksgiving is the preparation, right? Of course, everybody buys the turkey, right?

Everybody goes for the turkey, right? And all the stuffing and the trimmings and the sides and stuff comes secondary. But everybody goes for the turkey, right? For us here, we're only about four people here, right?

We're not having, like, a whole family here, it's just four people. And, you know, we're getting all the stuff that would make sense for four people and then some for, like, leftovers and stuff like that, right? So, like, you know, a lot of people, they've got to take a look at how much they cook, right? Unless, if you're so used to having the same amount of people come to your house, the same people every year, it should be easy.

But here, since we've been here, we've only had maybe four people at a time, right? Everybody else, other parts of the family have their Thanksgiving where they are, right? Whether it be up north, down south, west coast, east coast, whatever, right? So we got the bird, we got the sides and stuff like that.

So, you know, the crazy part is the cooking, right? Because, you know, the turkey is going to take hours. Some people like to cook it overnight. And it's like, you know, me and my buddy, we had a discussion on how to, like, what should we prepare this turkey as?

Now, of course, there are ideas that are beyond the typical oven, right? Now you got people who are air frying, no, deep frying, and air frying turkeys. Now, you do have ovens out there that also doubles as an air fryer. Now, whoever invented the air fryer is a genius.

I mean, for somebody who can't cook, that air fryer would do wonders for you when it comes to frozen food, believe me, I know. So, you know, you got people who are air frying turkeys, who are deep frying, and, of course, conventional cooking, right? So we decided, I guess we, oh, he wanted to smoke a turkey. Like, smoke it overnight, you know, if you have a smoker, right?

I actually did try food one time. I tried hammering a smoker, and I just, to die for it. If you have the patience to deal with it, the length of the cooking, because it cooks very slow, right? But it tastes amazing.

It's like a piece of artwork that takes years to perfect, and it just tastes really, really good. But, no, we're going to go with the traditional oven turkey. Our oven here is electric, so it should be really interesting. And then, of course, we're going to have cranberry sauce.

We had to talk about cranberry sauce. He doesn't like cranberry sauce. Well, no, he doesn't like cranberry sauce. He doesn't even like the idea of cranberry sauce being mixed in another food.

Now, come on, tell me if I'm wrong. If you have a plate of food, you know how you proportion all your food, right? One side has turkey, one side has macaroni and cheese, one side has whatever else, right? I love to take the cranberry sauce, of course, on the side of itself, and mix it in with some of my turkey, my stuffing.

One bite of that together is mouth-watering, mouth-watering, right? He thought that I meant, like, stuffing cranberry sauce into the turkey or in macaroni. No, absolutely not. No, you take a little bit of everything, scoop it in one, two, and then you eat it.

And it's delicious, right? So, yeah, cranberry sauce is one of my favorite little things on the side because it just sweetens up everything. It just makes everything more juicy and just more delicious. My wife is going to be making – she says she wants to do a cranberry sauce from scratch, right?

I'm pretty sure it'll come out good. We'll see how that works out. I'm going to be working on macaroni and cheese, baked macaroni and cheese. My aunt, who's a caterer and owned a restaurant at one point, makes two die-for baked macaroni and cheese.

So I'm going to make an attempt this year to get her recipe in the way she did it and make it myself. I can't cook more of a damn. No, I probably can cook, but I'm afraid to try. I don't know what it's going to be like.

I can grill. I can grill. No problem. Give me a grill.

Give me some meat seasoning. It'll come out great. George Foreman? Yeah, absolutely.

Airfryer? Yeah, sure, why not? But to actually cook something from scratch is, oof, it's touchy. I didn't quite inherit that cooking talent from her.

So we'll see how that works out. And everybody else is going to have a hand in it all, right? Everybody's got an assigned food that they are going to make, right? So I'm just right now even talking about Thanksgiving.

It's just making my mouth water. I can't wait. I'm just going to eat pretty light this week leading up to Thanksgiving. And then I'm not going to starve myself.

I'm just going to, like, not eat so much, especially the night before. You shouldn't eat anything the night before, right? And then it's Thanksgiving, it's turkey time, right? I mean, I can't wait.

I honestly cannot wait until we carve that turkey, right? Now, for you guys out there, you know, how do you go into preparation, right? Now, you know, again, to prepare a turkey meal, of course you need help. Some people do it all by themselves.

And, man, good luck to that. If that's what you do is what you do. You know, you start off the night before putting everything together, laying it all out and stuff like that, right? And then you take the time to cook it.

Some people just get up early in the morning and start. I mean, it's a bit much, right? Especially when it comes to size turkeys. The bigger the turkey, the more work.

The longer it's going to take to cook, right? Because that's a big-ass bird. We saw, like, birds that were about at least 20 pounds. And I'm like, you know, that's a bit much for four people, right?

We're talking turkey sandwiches, turkey casserole. Whatever the hell you do with leftovers, that's just a lot of turkey to do. And there's one thing I don't really like to do is leave leftovers for a long time. I feel like maybe after three or four days of Thanksgiving food, that should be it.

Like, if you're not done in that period of the food, just bye-bye, right? And I'm just not a type of store and hoard things. I just like to, yeah, keep it around. And save you some money too during the week, the work week, right?

You don't have to go and buy out while you're at work. You just take some of that leftover Thanksgiving food and just go to town with it. Put it in a company microwave or whatever. Just make sure that your coworkers eat it because I've had that happen one time and I was not happy about that, right?

So, yeah, just leftovers. Who doesn't love leftovers? And I don't know if anyone noticed, but somehow Thanksgiving leftovers tastes way better than the first day. For some reason, I don't know what the microwave does, but it makes – the leftovers is fantastic after Thanksgiving or any meal, right?

It's just – I don't know what it is, but that's always the best part too, right? But, yeah, like, you know, and I know there's a challenge this year with inflation. Like, the price on everything is up, right? And it's noticeable.

I notice it, especially when you go to somewhere like Publix, right? Publix is already expensive. But I come to learn about Publix. They have what you need when you need it, right?

So, yeah, it's a bit expensive. So, I mean, like, yeah, you know, if you have to go to a food pantry, you don't have any shame in going to a food pantry or if you need help. It is what it is. Just know you're not the one – you're not the only one who's going to need help this Thanksgiving.

You know, people just got to budget a little bit more and stuff like that. But, you know, the most important thing is you have a meal and you're thankful for it, right? And then, like, what else would go into Thanksgiving, right? Well, let's stick more with the food aspect of it, right?

Now, I grew up around Hispanic culture primarily, right? Me being part Hispanic myself, I grew up around a lot of very, very different foods. My aunt, who pretty much raised me, can cook damn near about everything, anything, right? So, I mean, you name it, she could definitely cook it to a point, right?

And growing up, I was exposed to all these foods. And, you know, especially for Thanksgiving, it was just amazing. A lot of Spanish food, too. But, you know, it's one thing with Thanksgiving, when you have other cultures, you get some very interesting treats with, you know, Thanksgiving.

Like, I don't know, Filipino Thanksgiving, Hispanic Thanksgiving, and Asian Thanksgiving, right? It's not just your traditional turkey stuffing and potato salad. You get a little bit of everything. Like, I can only imagine a Filipino Thanksgiving where you get, like, what do you call those?

They like little egg rolls, lumpas or lumpias. There it is, lumpias. And I love lumpias. And you get those noodles.

Oh, man, I can only imagine. Like, somebody, if anybody would invite me for a Thanksgiving meal, especially if it's like Filipino, I'm in. I am so in. Actually, I think I did go to one about a few years ago.

My wife's co-worker, who is Filipino, and she had a Thanksgiving, I believe, there. And it was just a mix of everything. Oh, man, I left stuffed. And, you know, I'm telling you, stuffed, right?

But that's just the beauty of it. Like, you can put a Thanksgiving meal. It doesn't necessarily have to be a turkey stuffing or whatever. It can be whatever the hell you want, right?

Some people, I'm pretty sure some people out there don't even use a turkey, right? Which is whatever, right? Like I said, you can make it what you want, right? It doesn't necessarily have to be a turkey.

Hell, you want to have a steak. You can have a steak. Hell, you want a bowl of Froot Loops. Or, I don't know, you just want to go get Chinese food.

Because if there's one thing that's going to be open for Thanksgiving, you best believe it's Chinese food. Because my local spot, they already have it on their business that they're going to be open for Thanksgiving. But they're not going to be open for Black Friday, which I understand. You know, people want to go out and get those deals and stuff like that.

And actually, that's going to be an episode I feel like I could do tomorrow's Black Friday now that I think about it. Yeah, that might be like the episode tomorrow. So, like, you know, what are you guys doing out there? Like, are you guys, like, how soon do some of you who do listen start getting food, right?

Or start planning ahead, right? I mean, if you're crazy enough to start, like, if you get all your food at the very last minute, I mean, good luck, right? I mean, depending on what you're trying to get. I mean, you might still be able to find a turkey on Thanksgiving Eve.

I think so. But it's just best to get those things early, right? You know what I mean? And then, like, there's one thing about Thanksgiving when you're done is, like, taking home the food.

Now, if you're, you know, a Black Thanksgiving, right? Like, I'm telling you, I've seen people, like, we take pans of food home. We don't take plates. We take pans, right?

And I'm telling you, you know, all that, that was me. I'd be like, you'll take as much as you want, man, because it's a lot of food. And again, I'm not too big on leftovers for a certain amount of time. So if that's what you want to take, you're going to take, right?

But yeah, we take pans home. And you name it, like, plates upon plates, stacked upon plates. My brother one time took a whole stack of plates, foam, styrofoam plates, and took it with him. I kid you not, you probably had enough food for a few days, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Leftover Thanksgiving food, right? But also, too, desserts, right? And it's funny because we haven't even discussed what kind of dessert we have. I mean, we made a buzz about it.

Apple pie. Some people like to bake fresh pies, right? Apple pie being definitely one. Pumpkin pie.

Pumpkin pie would probably be like the number one pie, I think, for Thanksgiving that people would do. And you got people that just don't buy the damn pie. Like, go to the supermarket, buy one of those Edwards pies, or buy one of those, just a pie in general, right? Some people don't feel like bacon.

Like me, I like to bake, but I don't know. I'm not a really big baker, right? Like I said, I don't even cook like that. I need to.

I really need to. You know what I mean? Culinary arts, I think, is definitely a big thing, especially if you have no one cooking for you. I mean, I'm married.

I have my wife cooks, but she doesn't always cook, and that's because she gets off late from work. I usually get home early, so it'd be a nice little turnaround for me to start cooking. So when she gets home, she has a nice home-cooked meal, right? But I mean, like, again, when it really comes down to rent with Thanksgiving and food and stuff like that, it's just the people that you're around.

Especially, like I said, after the pandemic, people weren't even able to have Thanksgiving, right? People had to DoorDash or order Uber Eats or DoorDash for Thanksgiving, right? Or like, they couldn't go see their loved ones and stuff at Thanksgiving, stuff like that. You know what I mean?

Like, that's pretty deep. So you have some little extra to be thankful for, right? So, you know, I'd like to know, get some feedback from you guys on, you know, what do you like to cook? Like, what's your favorite Thanksgiving?

What's your favorite part of the... Nah, let's rephrase that. What's your favorite dish on Thanksgiving? What's your favorite side?

What's your favorite... Whatever, right? If you're just in there for the desserts, or you just like the sides, or the turkey, you know what I mean? And then how are you preparing the turkey this year?

Again, are you deep frying a regular oven, air fryer, or get this one, microwave turkey? Yes, I had a discussion about this. I don't even know if people do this or how it's done, but a microwave turkey, right? Me and him, this guy, had a discussion on this.

I've never heard anyone do that. And I mean, that's got to be one hell of an industrial microwave to cook a turkey. Like, it's not one of those microwaves you find at Target. Absolutely not.

I just got to see this. Like, let me ask you, have you ever had a microwave turkey? So, where did you get the idea? It was on the news a few years ago.

Remember, this guy is from Wisconsin. So, whatever the hell you guys are doing up there, microwaving turkeys, send me an email, send me a line, or anyone who is listening to this episode right now about the turkey in the microwave, right? That's going to be the question for the show anyway. Like, how are you preparing your turkey this year, right?

Now, I'm a little skittish when it comes to turkey preparation. Deep frying, deep frying a turkey, right? Now, that's probably one of the most dangerous ways to make a turkey. You know, they have those videos on, those simulated videos from, like, underwriter laboratories that sit there and be like, oh, this is this fryer, you know, this is what you don't do with a turkey.

So, a lot of people, when they deep fry turkeys, the two, I think the two most common mistakes they make is either too much oil or it's a frozen turkey, right? Like, oil and water don't mix very well. And, I mean, if your turkey is frozen and you're putting it in a deep fryer, it's going to erupt. And that oil spills on the burner under the fryer.

And then, before you know it, the whole thing is up in flames. And grease fires, they are not easy to put out. They are not easy to put out. So, like, for those who plan on doing that, be very careful.

Because, I mean, and most importantly, don't do that inside. Don't do it in the garage. There are people who don't do this shit in the garage. Deep frying turkeys in the garage is an absolute no.

You're just asking for trouble. It has to be done outside. When it's well-bentered, like, it's, you know what I mean? Have to do it outside, right?

But if you are doing that. uh just be very mindful on how big the turkey is how can it properly fit and you know how much oil to measure and most importantly just make sure it's not a completely frozen turkey like the best thing you can do is take out the turkey a day or two before out the freezer let it thaw out properly and then you start doing your preparations and your you know however you want to do your turkey right so i mean like yeah and you know what too like if you have to get your turkey catered because i know popeyes um they do they sell turkeys for thanksgiving i didn't even know that but they do right some people just like man fuck this i don't want to cook a turkey right in any capacity i just i want a meal but i don't want to have a cookie now some people get uh thanksgiving meals catered like boston market right uh popeyes i think do it uh yeah and there's nothing wrong with that popeyes have a cation turkey i would love to try that i'm pretty sure it's pretty decent i don't know how big their turkey is but uh just picture just picture a cation turkey that's gotta be uh that's gotta be pretty uh pretty proper like i don't know why i've been saying this word proper like to describe something that's good uh this is kind of proper i think i like this very much it just sounds weird but you know i might i might start some maybe people might start saying proper a lot or whatever the case is right um but uh yeah if you're catering if you're getting catered food um yeah i mean that's just that could be the way to go right i know public's right we got some of our food last year um some of our sides of fixing catered from um public's and it actually is pretty damn good right like i don't know what everybody's supermarket is every state has their own sort of supermarket right new york cat pathmark uh shop right and then you know down here in the south and in florida there's public's right and stuff like that food lion you know shit we've got piggly wiggly out here right so whoever is like hearing your food you know just pick wisely like public's is they do a pretty damn good job with their food right i'm not even kidding i give them props uh public's out there just you know doing it right um but however you have your thanksgiving uh this year right just be thankful for what you got you know what i mean because uh i tell you what that line out there when i saw for the turkeys painted a whole picture right now it's funny because i i you know you can't make assumptions about people um everybody is going through something to some capacity but i found it very great a little bit odd that some of the cars that i've seen on that turkey line were late months about 2021 21 22 cars right brand new cars that people line up their turkeys for now i was like you know what there are like three different types of people on this turkey line and it's one people who legitimately are hurting and um you know literally cannot afford a meal or a turkey right then you got those who could possibly afford a turkey or could afford a turkey but want to take a chance i get it free where they can save a little money and you got people um who don't really need like you know they can buy their own turkey but they just you know i don't know it's just weird man but you know again you got to take into account you can't always like pocket check somebody but i made that assumption a little earlier because it was just like like this guy with this brand new mustang i'm like what are you doing on this turkey line the only thing i can think of is i mean you can afford this mustang you can afford the turkey but maybe you just got a free chance at a turkey and in the future i come to learn um if i you know need to get a turkey or whatever the case is or i might be getting for somebody else go to the go i have to go early because i think it started around eight o'clock um in the morning but you know and we got up i went for my run in the morning around 6 30 whatever to shower and we went and got there like a little bit after eight o'clock and that line was already long so like if you have to wait online for food whatever uh just know that there's a lot more people also gonna be waiting online you might want to get there a little bit early right i mean i've seen that line i was like there's no way i'm waiting online and luckily like we heard that public's deal and we just went with it right it's like yeah at 49 cents a pound that turkey a 14 pound turkey with 49 cents a pound cost me no more than eight bucks and it's a meaty turkey so i don't want you thinking like it's a very uh asthmatic turkey it's very skinny like it's a cornish hand or something no this is a hefty size bird for eight dollars so um i don't know if your public's is running this deal everywhere but if you live near public's especially in tennessee um you might want to go check it out like get a decent bird like don't trip it doesn't have to be a name brand bird like okay a butterball turkey and a turkey for public's is a fucking turkey the butterball is not gonna taste any better than the generic turkey okay just don't think like that get a turkey that you can get now for those who buy a name brand turkey i'm gonna stop you okay but for those who can't afford a name brand turkey don't just buy don't don't just buy a turkey buy what you can afford to feed you and your family this thanksgiving right that's all i'm just saying right but there are some good deals out there um you just gotta catch them now there's probably a lot of overstock there's a lot of overstock a lot of things this holiday season because of the pandemic holding up shipments and all that this is the perfect time to go out and just go get your deal on right so hey i'm gonna wrap it up with that and you know the whole thanksgiving thing and the food and stuff like that just talking about this episode talking to this episode about this content is making me hungry as we speak i mean even though i just had fish sticks just not too long ago i'm still kind of hungry fish sticks are not exactly um filling but they are delicious nonetheless and i air fried these fish sticks and they came out with such a crunch delicious anyway i'm gonna leave it at that tomorrow um will be another episode of course um maybe about black friday i need to do a black friday episode i need to but i think i might save it for the actual day of black friday because i can see some nonsense we're going there just to really see the nonsense we're gonna be driving around uh going to like wall by itself just to see the mayhem behind it so you know i'm gonna save that for black friday because i'm pretty sure we're gonna see something that will add on to the content of the episode right um but yes tomorrow will be another episode right um and there'll be all so many more episodes to come as we call it as long as there's content out there there's unlimited content there'll be more episodes so hey i'm gonna leave it at that in about an hour or so i'm gonna be going to the casino yeah that's gonna be fun i did an episode of casino already but you never know i might see something really cool that can add on to a story or tell you guys tomorrow right we shall see so until tomorrow i do appreciate you guys taking the time to listen to this episode of the daily mind and once again i am your host and we will do this again mayana right and please uh leave a comment so in the questions that we post that i post on the show and of course emails right tell your friends spread it around i'm doing my little trying to advertise get more people to listen kind of deal spread the word um i know there's like thousands of freaking podcasts out there you may not be able to listen to a lot of them but uh tell somebody about this one it puts a smile on my face it really does you can't see it but it does all right so hey thanks for listening i will do this again peace out