All right, since nothing's happening on the boards at the moment, I'm taking the opportunity to conduct a poll.

A friend and I are cooking Thanksgiving dinner while our husbands drink the wine - preferably in another room. We figure that between us, we will have two ovens and eight burners, which should be more than enough. At least in theory. We just know that four burners are never enough.

In her family, there is a tradition that all dishes for the holiday be made with entirely new recipes - no repeats from previous years and no road-testing of anything.

The logic (which is good, I think) is that these are friends. If they don't like something, they don't have to eat it. It can die quietly and disappear into the disposal as if it had never been. If they comment on it, then f***'em, they don't get invited back again.

So, here are the questions:

1. What is your favorite Thanksgiving treat?

2. What is an absolute requirement on the table?

3. What dish do you hate with a passion? (C'mon, everyone has one of those.)

4. If you had to choose, would you even bother with a turkey?

5. Stuffing in the bird or in a casserole? I'm an in the bird person. Otherwise, why bother? You have to soak up the fat and jus and properly season that bird, and it's the most efficient way to do it.

Feel free to make a list with your favorite Thanksgiving menu. I have no pride at all about shamelessly stealing ideas from others. No, there will be no marshmallows. Yuck in a big way.

1. What is your favorite Thanksgiving treat?

Pumpkin pie made from scratch. Fresh spices, crust from scratch, let it rest overnight for best flavor. Hand-whipped cream.

2. What is an absolute requirement on the table?

Flowers.

3. What dish do you hate with a passion?

Stuffing. A melange of abominations that ought to be bagged and disposed prior to the meal.

Regarding the lack of marshmallows - a sweet potato prepared properly needs no sweetening. Tasty with lots of vitamin A and fiber, but you're not going to fix them anyhow so don't worry about it.

4. If you had to choose, would you even bother with a turkey?

Hell, no. We'd have a nice pot roast, prime rib, or some steaks.

5. Stuffing in the bird or in a casserole?

In the double-strength plastic bag and out with the trash.

1. What is your favorite Thanksgiving treat?
As long as the whipped cream lasts, pumpkin pie (I refuse to eat naked pie). After that, there is the semi-traditional spiked watermelon my brother insists on bringing, but that could just be because my mother is the world's cheapest drunk and it's fun to watch her after a couple pieces.

2. What is an absolute requirement on the table?
Apple stuffing-- it's the only thing we've never messed up.

3. What dish do you hate with a passion? (C'mon, everyone has one of those.)
I detest asparagus and anything with raspberries *blech*

4. If you had to choose, would you even bother with a turkey?
Eh, depends on what else is available. I do like turkey, but if I came across some gorgeous steaks and lobster tails at a decent price, the bird would get chucked at a passing vehicle.

5. Stuffing in the bird or in a casserole?
Definately in the bird, otherwise it's not really stuffing, it's just squishy bread.

1) Pumpkin pie. Although I've grown fond of pecan. But just the top part and the crust, not the mooshy part between the pecans and crust.

2) Hubby's sweet potatos. And wine, for toasting family and friends.

3) The stuffing that comes out of the turkey. Or an accidental bite of giblets.

4) Yes. I love turkey. The white meat, anyway.

5) Cornbread stuffing in a casserole.

I have my grandmother's recipe for Parkerhouse rolls, but I haven't got them right yet. They are to die for.

I'm with you. Marshmallows.....Urk.

Blasphemy!

I found a recipe for them that calls for curry, onions and double-smoked bacon - it looks really good, but we'll only find out when it hits the table because of the no road testing rule.

Pumpkin pie is on everyone's list, but I have to do a variation. I'm thinking I'll hit some of the antique cookbooks and see if I can find something lighter, but still pumpkin. (And I'm still making the classic pie for us.)

I find people are too full after the meal for something as heavy as a pumpkin pie. That's why I like it for breakfast!

1 - Turkey. I love turkey - as long as it is good right. It can't be too dry.

2 - Umm - the feast. I'm unable to appreicate table settings and the like.

3 - Yams/sweet potatoes. Not quite hated with a passion, but always avoided.

4 - Yes

5 - We do both at my folks house. 2 of my sisters are vegetarians, so my mom makes stuffing in the bird, and then a meatless stuffing as a casserole.

Additional menu item - my mom has in years past, served colcannon along with mashed potatotes. <link> Anything that brings extra potatoes to the table - I am in favor of. (Also - colcannon is much tastier than one would think from the description...)

Ah, one more election for Election Day!

MessyONE:

1. What is your favorite Thanksgiving treat?

Pumpkin pie.

MessyONE:

2. What is an absolute requirement on the table?

See above.

MessyONE:

3. What dish do you hate with a passion? (C'mon, everyone has one of those.)

Anything with green beans and/or marshmallows.

MessyONE:

4. If you had to choose, would you even bother with a turkey?

Not if I'm doing the cooking! I did a duck one year, and spaghetti another. Usually I do teriaki chicken, by the family's request.

MessyONE:

5. Stuffing in the bird or in a casserole?

Both, of course! "Stuffing" is stuffed in the bird, and "dressing" (same recipe) is baked with the bird.

1. I guess I'm alone in loving stuffing. It's the carbs, man, the carbs!

2. Well, it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without the turkey. A duck or goose might do in a pinch. But it'll have to be a bird.

3. There's not really anything that I hate for itself, but I do loathe bland overcooked vegetables. It's a crime against produce to serve it like that.

4. See #2. Got to have turkey.

5. Either is good. But usually I end up stuffing the bird with onions and other spices, and cooking the stuffing (I guess you call it dressing in this case) in the pan.

A Thanksgiving favorite that I serve every year (that I'm in charge of the food) is spinach and sourdough dressing with oysters. Another favorite is corn and butternut squash with basil. I don't have links but both are on the recipe files of epicurious.com.

One year, we had an excess of fresh (but strained, so it wasn't stringy) pumpkin. After about a dozen pies, several pumpkin breads, a few dozen pumpkin cookies, and something else, but it wasn't the pumpkin ice cream - we skipped that, we finally gave up and threw the rest out. Even people at work and school had stopped eating the treats.

1. What is your favorite Thanksgiving treat? My world famous candied yams

2. What is an absolute requirement on the table? cutsey table decorations

3. What dish do you hate with a passion? cranberry sauce

4. If you had to choose, would you even bother with a turkey? yep & I also cook a ham too, we usually have 20-30 guests every year

5. Stuffing in the bird or in a casserole? stuffing in the bird

We have our Thanksgiving dinner every year out on our back porch. One of the many benefits to our warm AZ weather. People start asking us in July if they are invited for Thanksgiving.

MessyONE:

Pumpkin pie is on everyone's list, but I have to do a variation. I'm thinking I'll hit some of the antique cookbooks and see if I can find something lighter, but still pumpkin. (And I'm still making the classic pie for us.)

I find people are too full after the meal for something as heavy as a pumpkin pie. That's why I like it for breakfast!

I have eaten a slice of pumpkin chiffon pie somewhere but I haven't seen a recipe for it. It can't be that complicated. Kind of a goofy concept but it wasn't that bad. My dad used to say there's only two good kinds of pie; hot and cold.

I collect old cookbooks, so I get to know a little history with my recipes. Almost all of the chiffon pie recipes that people use now were invented by the Knox Gelatin Company. They were in a giveaway book that was in grocery stores, or you could send them some stamps and they would send it to you.

Of course, I paid about six bucks for the thing.....

I usually make my kickass bread stuffing, but I have to give that up this year. We found a recipe that calls for a whole lot of portobello mushrooms and cippoline onions that looks yummy.

Epicurious is my friend! I also like Cook's Illustrated. Their recipes are always successful because they've been tested a gazillion times. A month or so ago they did a new recipe for drop biscuits that is the best I've ever had.

My personal most-hated Thanksgiving stuff:

1. That frozen raspberry Jello thing. It's served with the main course - revolting. Picture it with gravy running into it. Barfalicious.

2. Anything served in a turkey-shaped dish of any kind, especially the big tureens.

3. Three bean salad.

4. Anything that involves French's Fried Onions from the can.

5. Three bean casserole.

6. Anything that involves a Campbell's creamy soup product.

7. Cranberry sauce from a can. (C'mon, it only takes ten minutes to make that sauce - cut the sugar in half, add some Grand Marnier and nutmeg.)

8. Anything with marshmallows, especially sweet potatoes. They run that "recipe" every year in the newspaper. I'd sooner scrape out my lungs with a fork than go near that stuff.

9. Meringue with marshmallows. Must be a Mid-Western thing, because I've never heard of it anywhere else. Just yuck. Make the real thing or don't bother.

10. Dinner in the early afternoon. Be civilized. Eat at dinner time.

I really don't know anyone (personally) who actually likes green beans with Campbell's soup and canned onion, or marshmallows on pies, on Jello, or on sweet potatoes. My daughter likes canned cranberry sauce - the smooth kind, but uses it as a jelly on her bread. And rasperry anythings are gross to me anyway (too tart), but espcially all over my meat and with all those seeds in it.

So why do people keep making that stuff, like anyone actually wants it? Is it one of those things they feel they are obliged to do, like going to church on Easter, when they have to consult a phone book to remember where one is?