Dualities of the Stomach: Tips For an Off-Kilter Thanksgiving

Happy Turkey Day to our hot and perfectly "off" friends and followers. We, your lovely sauce bosses, were married last month, and we continue to celebrate Thanksgiving with both sides of our family at one table for an unlikely yet compatible day of thanks. In the spirit of joining odd, yet perfectly synced ingredients, we give you our recommendations for a beautifully contradictory Thanksgiving Day. 

Invite Off-Kilter People: This was easy for us, and in fact, our biggest challenge was finding on-kilter folks. We failed at the on-kilter guest list entirely. 

For many, however, finding guests who are a little “off” may be tricky on the surface. Do not fret! All it takes is looking more closely at your relatives and friends. You did invite odd people, whether you realized it or not. Identify their idiosyncrasies, then lean and watch your Thanksgiving table fall extraordinarily crooked. Your lack of balance will be the perfect balance.

Put Bacon on Your Turkey: We have been doing it in our family for generations. Salty, rich, lean, crispy, meaty, juicy; it must be done.

Don’t overthink it, either. There are no specified quantities or time/temp directions other than what is required to cook your turkey. Slap raw bacon slices atop your raw turkey before putting it in the oven. Put enough on that the slices start to fall off of the sides, and add some to the legs if you can fit it. Then, roast! The bacon drippings will eliminate any need for basting and keep your turkey perfectly moist. The juices at the bottom will provide you with the base ingredient for homemade, bacon-infused turkey gravy, and you will have a pre-meal snack of extra crispy. turkey-infused bacon. Voilà! Two things become one heavenly dish.

Sweet and Spice: To get sweet and spice at your table, simply invite Matt and me (ba-da-tsss). Jokes aside, it is no secret that sugar and spice complement each other. For our hot sauce, we craft these pairings via some sort of hot pepper alongside some sort of fruit (ingredients varying for each sauce) and we do it well.

Here’s the thing: traditional Thanksgiving meals are bland. It does not matter who the chef is, either. Thanksgiving, the way it is generally imagined, is structured around bread, potatoes, and white meat. Perhaps a vegetable, but let’s not get carried away. It is rich, warm, and delicious, but it is admittedly lacking in umph. 

Yet, It can have it all. These standard Thanksgiving dishes are blank slates, and all it takes is the right hot sauce. White meat and fruit are already great companions. That is how cranberry sauce finds its way to the table. Why not hot pepper and fruit with a white meat delivery system? Add some acid to the Thanksgiving fat and some spice for something nice. Simply put a bottle on the table.

Pineapple Peach Hobinero is already in our bag for arrival.