Thanksgiving

All countries have national myths. The story of the first Thanksgiving, for example, evokes the warm glow of intercultural contact: European settlers, struggling to survive in the New World, and Native American tribes eager to help. But as many of us learned in history class, this story leaves a lot out.

If you're gluten-free, you may turn up your nose at Aunt Betsey's macaroni and cheese. And what if you've got a vegan teenager in the family who'd like the Thanksgiving feast to be turkey-free?

A poll from the University of Michigan finds that for families with a picky eater or someone on a special diet, holiday meals can be tricky.

It's the season of sinful eating. In just four days we'll be piling our Thanksgiving plates high with buttery mashed potatoes and MSG-laden turkey.

And good news, gobblers: All those forkfuls of goodness may not be as bad for us as we think.

With enough divisive topics to go around the Thanksgiving table this year, dinner debates can easily steal our attention away from loved ones. StoryCorps suggests using its app to have a meaningful, one-on-one conversation, as part of its Great Thanksgiving Listen project, where kids interview their elders about their lives. But anyone with a smartphone can participate.

For the past almost-50 years, I've been sharing an old family Thanksgiving recipe with NPR listeners. Mama Stamberg's Cranberry Relish comes from my late mother-in-law Marjorie Stamberg, who served it in Allentown, Pa., when I was brought there to be inspected by my future in-laws.

There are a lot of things that make holidays hectic: travel, cooking, making small talk and avoiding questions from your relatives about who you're dating and how school's going. That's typically part of what comes with holidays, but the chaos and disorder that accompany Black Friday, not even a true holiday, are something else.

Looking for a diversion from divisive political conversation this Thanksgiving? StoryCorps suggests using its smartphone app as part of its Great Thanksgiving Listen project.

Somehow we're squeezing 18 people into our apartment for Thanksgiving this year, a year when too many people are worrying about fraught post-election conversations. My relatives, who luckily are all cut from the same political cloth, range in age from my mother, aged 92, to my 32-year-old nephew (my 17-month-old granddaughter's political leanings are still unfolding.)

I love them all, but in a way the one I know best is the middle-aged man across the table whose blue eyes look just like mine: my younger brother Paul.

It's Thanksgiving, which means you'll be seeing Aunt Martha's sweet potato casserole encased in a marshmallow cloud that has drifted too close to the sun. Cousin Joe, who's just here for the game, will bring his famous can-shaped cranberry sauce that looks like it's been attacked by a Slinky. Then your sister will arrive with her sad concoction of green beans drowning in cream-of-mushroom soup, flecked with floating onion strings that have been flung like debris from the Titanic.

Before you pass that gravy this Thanksgiving, you may want to make sure you got what you paid for.

Food giant Heinz is voluntarily recalling hundreds of cases of gravy just ahead of turkey day due to jars being possibly mislabeled.

The labeling mishap was for Heinz HomeStyle Bistro Au Jus Gravy. The jars in question were inadvertently labeled Heinz Pork Gravy and may contain milk and soy.

The Food and Drug Administration issued an alert via Twitter citing "undeclared milk and soy" in the HomeStyle.