This year, in our house, we're cooking our version of Suzanne Goin's succotash. Of course, Suzanne Goin doesn't call it succotash; in her book Sunday Suppers at Luques, she calls it sweet corn, green cabbage and bacon. We call it succotash because we throw in some lima beans and way more butter:
Cut 6 thick slices of bacon into small pieces and cook in a casserole until crispy. Remove and drain. Melt 1 stick of butter in the remaining bacon grease and add 1 sliced onion and some salt and pepper. Saute for a few minutes, then add half a small green cabbage, sliced, and cook until wilted. Add 2 packages of cooked frozen lima beans and 2 packages of frozen corn. Cook about 5 minutes, stirring, till the corn is done. You can do this in advance. Reheat gently and add the bacon bits. (Of course you might be able to get fresh corn, in which case feel free to overreach.)
- Recipe courtesy of Nora Ephron
For Thanksgiving we have a menu we love. Roast turkey, corn bread stuffing with Italian sausage, shiitake mushrooms and Turkish apricots, baked sweet potatoes with butter, cranberry sauce, roasted Brussels sprouts and sautéed string beans with garlic-toasted almonds. Since I started doing travel writing, I like to include one dish I've learned to make on a trip.
I have been an avid reader of 
Has anyone noticed that there's no debate this year? To stuff or not to stuff... To brine or not to brine... Yes, you can fast-cook a turkey at high-heat but should you? I think we all have debate fatigue; election fatigue; Washington gridlock fatigue -- and it's all somehow spilled over into Thanksgiving. We're going to the mountains so even the debate about whether we should have a second "fried" turkey (since we're sort of in the middle of the forest), is off the table as we'd probably burn the hills down. Steven Raichlen (the Beer-Can Chicken guy) does have a great BBQ'd turkey recipe, I've been told, but for the above reason we won't be trying that this year either...