It's T-minus two days from Thanksgiving. Your pie dough is waiting for you in the freezer. You've stocked up on wine. Your cranberry sauce is ready to go. You've started to defrost your turkey. (Right?! If not, we'll wait for you here.)
Now, it's time for my favorite part of prepping for the big day: planning the table topics.
This year, we called on team members, contributors, and community members to share their best back-pocket conversation starters. Here's what they had to offer:
Dorie Greenspan, cookbook author (and best-ever dinner host!) poses this question to her Thanksgiving guests:
"If, for the next week, you had no deadlines, no commitments, no emails or texts needing a response—and if money weren’t an issue—what would you do with that time?"
Eric Kim, Food52's senior editor, likes to get a bit whimsical with his guests. His go-to topic? Harry Potter. He asks the following of his table-mates:
"Harry Potter: What House are you? What’s your favorite book? What do you think of the allegory of good versus evil from the perspective of the House Elves?"
Ozoz Sokoh, blogger at Kitchen Butterfly and longtime Food52 community member, likes to keep it short and sweet, with a quippy question that gets the whole table talking:
"Treehouse or tent?"
What's your go-to conversation starter for Thanksgiving? Let us know in the comments.
Ella Quittner is a contributing writer and the
Absolute Best Tests columnist at Food52. She covers food, travel, wellness, lifestyle, home, novelty snacks, and internet-famous sandwiches. You can follow her on Instagram @equittner, or Twitter at @ellaquittner. She also develops recipes for Food52, and has a soft spot for all pasta, anything spicy, and salty chocolate things.
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