A Very Michigan Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is just around the corner and over a million Michiganians will soon be hitting the road to attend family get-togethers and enjoying annual traditions. To help get ready for the upcoming holiday we have compiled a bunch of informative and entertaining Thanksgiving related links for you to enjoy.
Thanksgiving Food & Drink
Thanksgiving starts with turkey, and the folks at Michigan Turkey are getting ready. An article from Whole Foods notes that Michigan Turkey is not a large conglomerate – they work strictly with farms in west Michigan within 25 miles of the plant. Check out the video below The Traverse City Record-Eagle has a great feature with tips & recipes for making it a local Thanksgiving and mLive’s Thanksgiving Page has some excellent info (with more coming) including a recipe for cherry wood smoked turkey that looks absolutely delicious! They note that Thanksgiving is expected to cost about 13% more in 2011, but also offer a few tips for a simpler and lower stress holiday.
Today on Michigan in Pictures there’s some ideas for incorporating Michigan chestnuts into your menu. For more, head over to Michigan-based Kitchen Chick for a ton of Thanksgiving recipes including cranberry pie!
Searching for the perfect complement for your meal? Michigan Master Sommelier Claudia Tyagi told us:
I always like Riesling with turkey, although with poultry Chardonnay would be beautiful. You have a lot of versatility and a lot of possibility with turkey. You could use a white wine or an aromatic wine. Those tend to go well with turkey, too.
Speaking of wine & recipes, there’s a post on Leelanau.com that pairs recipes from Traverse magazine with wines. Last year Claudia sent us Sylvia Rector’s article Give Michigan wines a second look on Thanksgiving. She calls out some more Michigan wines that you’ll want to put on your wine shop radar! MyNorth.com suggest a few Rieslings on the sweeter side and they also list some great dry Rieslings (which are awesome if you haven’t tried them).
The Centennial Cranberry Farm in Paradise was established in 1876 and has online ordering of all kinds of cranberry products. Absolute Michigan has more about Michigan Cranberries, and lots more Turkey Day food ideas & articles at absolutemichigan.com/Thanksgiving and in our Michigan Grown section in Food & Dining!
Parades & Football!
2012 marks the 86th birthday of America’s Thanksgiving Parade, and the parade is one of the country’s oldest and most celebrated parades. It kicks off at 9:20 AM on Woodward Avenue and Mack and end at Woodward Avenue and Congress in downtown Detroit on Thursday, November 24, 2011.
If you Motown is off your radar on Thanksgiving, how about a nice set of parade photos from the our Flickr pool, a clickondetroit.com article – “Thousands Cheered As America’s Thanksgiving Parade Rolled Down Woodward “ (with video), a historical look at Detroit’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and a TV tuned to WDIV-TV Local 4 at 9 AM (also on for an hour nationally). If you’re the prudent type, you might consider building up a calorie credit balance at the Annual Detroit Turkey Trot.
The Detroit Lions Thanksgiving Day Classic pits the Lions against the Houston Texans, and halftime will feature Kid Rock performing his new song Detroit, Michigan.
Amaze your family, friends with what you learn about the origins and history of Thanksgiving on Wikipedia.
