CHRISTINE: From the New York Times, you’re listening to The Wirecutter Show.
CAIRA: Hey everyone, it’s The Wirecutter Show. I’m Caira Blackwell.
CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.
ROSIE: And I’m Rosie Guerin, and we work at Wirecutter, the product recommendation site from the New York Times.
CAIRA: Each week, we bring you expert advice from our newsroom of 140 journalists, who review everyday products that will make your life better.
CHRISTINE: This episode of The Wirecutter Show is called: Last-Minute Thanksgiving Tips
ROSIE: Christine and Caira, it’s almost Thanksgiving.
CAIRA: I know.
ROSIE: Fall flew-
CAIRA: So fast.
ROSIE: It’s flying.
CAIRA: I can’t even believe it.
CHRISTINE: It’s winter now.
CAIRA: Yeah.
ROSIE: It’s right up on us, and I feel like there’s a lot that goes into Thanksgiving prep that rolls right into holiday prep. And there’s always this feeling, at least for me, like I’ve forgotten something or there’s something else I could do or bring or-
CHRISTINE: Yeah, life is so busy at this point too, like if you’ve got kids, you’re dealing with all that stuff. If you’re traveling to Thanksgiving, there’s a lot to think about. And yeah, I can feel a little overwhelming. I mean, we did our episode a couple of weeks ago for how to get ready for the meal, but there’s a lot more than just the meal at Thanksgiving, you know?
ROSIE: I agree. So I think we should do something a little bit different and zoom out and get some advice from our colleagues at Wirecutter more broadly, because there are so many things to think about.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, we have a lot of people on staff who can actually bring you some very enlightening tips on how to navigate this.
ROSIE: So let’s get into it. Let’s hear from some of our colleagues at Wirecutter. That’s what this episode is going to be about. We’re going to hear a lot of tips, we’ll talk them through. Hopefully, there’ll be some advice that you can take with you on your Thanksgiving.
CAIRA: Yeah, and keep in mind, we know that we’re publishing this the day before Thanksgiving, so all of this can be done the day of and following through Christmas if you want.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, I mean it’s all last-minute stuff that you really don’t have to buy anything for the most part. Certainly don’t have to have anything shipped to you, so it’s stuff you can either pick up on the way to the party or use stuff you already have.
CAIRA: Mm-hmm.
ROSIE: We’re going to take a quick break and we’ll be right back with our colleagues from Wirecutter.
CHRISTINE: Welcome back to The Wirecutter Show. This episode, we’re passing the mic to our colleagues at Wirecutter for some last-minute tips for making Thanksgiving awesome this year. Okay, so to start, we’ve got some tips on what you want to do before you arrive at the party or at the event.
CAIRA: Yeah, that’s right. So first up, we have some tips from our colleague Hannah Morrill about what might make a good last-minute host or hostess gift. Let’s hear it.
HANNAH: Hey guys, this is Hannah Morrill, I’m an editor on the Wirecutter style team, covering gifts and beauty. And the newest thing I’m absolutely obsessed with are the Graza olive oil bottles. So you could get that at Whole Foods. I see them at Target. It’s really great olive oil that we love that comes in these squeezy bottles, kind of like how chefs and restaurants would use squeezy olive oil. It has a lime green top, the packaging’s really cute. So I think bringing a bottle of that with some really nice bread, like sourdough bread or something like that is super easy. You could do it the day of.That’s idea number one. I love that one.
Idea number two is chocolate, but not just any chocolate. We love these chocolate bars from a brand called Taza, and they’re these little round discs, and they come in a range of flavors, and they’re just so cool and so delicious. I recently saw those at Whole Foods. You can also buy them online really easily. They come in a big pack, and so it would be a great idea to buy a couple packs of those Taza chocolates, and sort of have them on hand for over the course of the holidays. The other thing I’ve done before is buy a bunch of the Tony Chocolonely bars, and bring those when I’ve really not had an idea, and it’s always really well-appreciated, and something people wouldn’t buy for themselves.
Another thing I think is a great hostess gift is a little game. It’s something you can use the day of if you’re going somewhere. We really love Bananagrams. It’s kind of like a Scrabble with less rules. It comes in this little banana-shaped pouch. You can pick that up absolutely anywhere, buy it online or buy it at Target or wherever. I think the sort of guiding principles here are things that actually expand the experience of being together. and I always think it’s just the gesture, not the cost. And anything you can do to make it look prettier, to add a bow or a ribbon or take off the price tag, unwrap something so it’s not in plastic, those things elevate it and make it feel more special. So happy holidays. I hope this helps. Bye-bye.
CHRISTINE: Ooh, I like these ideas.
CAIRA: She’s a wealth of ideas.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, I would totally appreciate receiving a beautiful little stack of chocolates or the Graza olive oil, which I’ve used. I love it. I’ve noticed it’s pretty widely available at this point.
CAIRA: Yeah, you see it everywhere. Even for people who don’t really cook, you always need to grab a bottle of olive oil at some point. It’s nice.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, it’s kind of a universally good one. I think that’s good.
ROSIE: I like this idea of giving a gift that’s going to enhance the experience of being together. That’s really nice. I like Bananagrams, although I have played and have gotten very competitive, and then very cranky about it. So I would say know the vibe.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, know the vibe of the group you’re going to be entering into. But yeah, I think those are all very approachable, and a few of those are ones you can just do the morning of Thanksgiving, if you’re looking for some ideas.
CAIRA: Yeah. Well now we actually have another tip about some things that you might want to bring to Thanksgiving if you’re a guest. But these aren’t gifts necessarily. They’re just more practical things that might come in handy and make your host or hostess feel seen.
ROSE: Hi, my name is Rose Lorre, and I’m a senior staff writer at Wirecutter. I have four ideas for what you might want to bring if you are going to be a guest at someone else’s Thanksgiving. To me, as the person that needs to actually make this feast happen, I like guests who help proactively. So one thing I suggest, bring your own apron. Show me how much you are willing to help. Don’t make me find an apron for you to put on. Ask me what you can do.
Again, some people think this is very offensive because some people really feel pride and almost territorialism about their kitchens. I’m not that way. If you know that your host is that way and just wants to do things themselves, don’t do this. But for someone who might look overwhelmed or flustered, even if they’re an experienced cook, it happens to everyone. The feeling of getting that help without having to ask for it is just a fantastic feeling.
Okay, tip number two, bring your own leftover containers. For me, there’s only so many leftovers I can eat, and also I don’t want to give away my good leftover containers and have to keep track of getting them back, etc. So bring whatever you want. It can be your own leftover deli container from the last time you got Chinese takeout, it can be a Pyrex, whatever you want to do. And then, if you feel comfortable offering to help box stuff up, and asking if you can take something, then go right ahead. And if you don’t feel comfortable doing that, then don’t.
The third thing, no one’s done this in my life yet, but man, if you want to be my best friend, here we go. Bring whatever your stain remover, your portable handy stain remover of choice is, a Tide pen. Tide and Oxy make like a co-branded spray in a travel size bottle that I love. Ask if you can do some stain prep, some preliminary stain removal for your host. You just spray it on. It doesn’t bother anybody, it just soaks in, and just gives them a fighting chance at getting that tablecloth back to its most pristine condition.
And then, a reader suggested, which I really like, to bring ice because it’s very easy to pick up. The gas station will probably have. It’s very cheap. But then, bring it in your own cooler. So again, you’re solving problems in advance for the host. If you just bring them a bag of ice, then they have to stop everything and find room for that in their freezer or wherever, their own cooler. They have to go in the basement and get the cooler. Solve all the problems in advance and just sort of do things to lighten the load for the harried host.
ROSIE: Rose Lorre coming in hot.
CHRISTINE: Very hot with the tip. I like that tip around putting the ice in the cooler like I brought ice to people’s homes before but I never thought about bringing a cooler.
ROSIE: Yeah, that’s super helpful. Honestly, I think the theme of these tips is like thinking thoughtfully and proactively about what your host might appreciate and what kind of guest you feel like you can be. And they’re not going to be for everyone because not everyone is going to appreciate. You know, if you bring leftover containers or whatever. But I think some people really will.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, I think it kind of depends on your relationship. Like I would do these tips with my sister. I might not do them for like a friend that I don’t know, super, super well. And then one thing we should remind listeners about with any time you’re using a like a tide pen. Good idea to just do a little spot test to make sure it doesn’t bleach out the fabric in a way that the host may not want.
CAIRA: Also like, you could just use it on yourself, like I’m a messy eater. I’m sure I could always use a tide pen in my bag.
CHRISTINE: Like spilled wine or something like that. [
CAIRA: I feel like if I brought my own apron to a party, people would automatically assume it’s because I need a bib. So
CHRISTINE: I mean, you do. I don’t know. Maybe I do. I definitely do.
ROSIE: At Caira’s Thanksgiving, BYOBib
CHRISTINE: All right. So let’s transition into the next tip. You know, this weekend, the Thanksgiving through Sunday, these are some of the biggest travel days of the year. And I don’t know, I find traveling during times of high traffic extremely stressful with my family. And long road trips are kind of stressful. So I personally love to have some recommendations on what to listen to. That’s sort of good for a wide variety of ages. We’re going to hear from a friend of the pod, Lauren Dragan, who’s going to talk about great podcasts and audio books to listen to that you can listen to with kids and adults.
LAUREN: Hi, I’m Lauren Dragan, senior staff writer at Wirecutter. I cover headphones, hearing aids, and other audio stuff. So as you might expect, audio plays a big part of our road trips in my family. We naturally love podcasts, but we try to find some that we all agree on so it has to be stuff that we, as adults, like listening to too. Some that we’ve really enjoyed are for younger listeners, Wow in the world, there’s Brains On, Once Upon a Beat, all really solid. Tweens, we like Smologies with Alie Ward, Radio Lab for Kids is great. And then, as you get a little older, 99% Invisible, and Twenty Thousand Hertz are both really great shows about things you use in everyday life or things you hear in everyday life, and the stories behind them.
Another option, audiobooks. If there’s a classic that you loved as a kid, like Mouse and the Motorcycle or the Hobbit, it’s a great way to revisit it. Or you can do something totally new. A newer book we’re really into right now is Montgomery Bonbon: Murder at the Museum. It’s by Alasdair Beckett-King. It’s actually becoming a series. There’s three I think so far. Probably for seven or eight and up. It is legitimately funny and an actually good mystery. And the author is hilarious, his reading is fantastic. So highly recommend that.
Now, a couple pro-tips to make sure everything goes smoothly, first of all, download as much as you can before you go because there’s nothing worse than hitting a dead zone in the middle of nowhere, and then whatever you are enjoying suddenly stops. Anything you can do to get it ahead of time to have a little bit of backup is great. Second, if you connect your phone via cable, get an extra long one so you can hand your phone back to your kids in the back seats. That way, they can select songs while the current one is playing, and it keeps you from having a lot of big gaps between songs. So there you go. I hope these help, and I hope you have a fantastic safe road trip and holiday.
CHRISTINE: I loved those tips. I am not familiar with most of those podcasts, and I’ll be looking them up. And I love that cord recommendation because I find myself I’m always having to play DJ in the front of the car, and it’s very annoying, so it’d be nice if the kids could do it from the back.
CAIRA: Yeah, I do like that. She mentioned a podcast that I personally love that I actually forgot about, 99% Invisible has a great episode about why Toronto trashcans are the way they are, and it’s because of their raccoon population. Stuff like that you do, I don’t know, I feel like I wouldn’t really listen to that on the train. But when I’m stuck in a car, it’s something that I can actually tune into and pay attention to.
ROSIE: Another recommendation I got from my friend Madison is Sesame Street Storytime. This is obviously for little little kids, but they’re stories that are from the Sesame Street universe, and it’s really sweet.
CAIRA: Really?
ROSIE: Yeah, these are mini audiobooks from Sesame Street, and that’s a really fun way to pass the time in the car. And actually for kids a bit older and adults definitely adults. The Good Whale from our colleagues at Serial Productions, it’s the story of a wildly ambitious science experiment to return Keiko the Orca star of Free Willy. You remember the movie? Really? Yeah.
CAIRA: I’ve never seen.
ROSIE: It. Yeah. It’s about the experiment to return Keiko back to the ocean.
CHRISTINE: Well, I actually have a very close connection to Keiko because my dad’s part of his business. The building was, like, right next to this aquarium where Keiko lived for many years in Newport, Oregon. Yeah. And so we would go see Keiko at the aquarium. So I’m very I definitely want to listen to that podcast with my kids.
CAIRA: Now we’ve got a few tips about things you might be thinking about during your gathering with your friends and family. So first up, I know a lot of families like to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade or football.
ROSIE: Do you know what we watch?
CHRISTINE: Never. I would never watch football.
ROSIE: Christine’s not watching football. Every year, I like to watch Miracle on 34 Street on-
CAIRA: What is that? Oh. Did I just date myself or you both?
ROSIE: Both. That’s what’s so damaging both. Both at once.
CAIRA: It’s double-hitter.
ROSIE: I’ll tell you later what Miracle on 34 Street is. But that’s a thing that we like to watch every Thanksgiving morning.
CAIRA: So we’ve actually got our TV writer with a couple of tips to just talk about how to make sure your TV is set up perfectly to watch whatever you’ll be watching. Not Football for Christine, some random movie I’ve never heard of for Rosie. Let’s hear it.
LEE: Hi, I’m Lee Neikirk, and I’m a senior staff writer on Wirecutter’s AV team. I have some quick tips on setting up either your TV or if you’re at your parents’ house, your parents’ TV, just to make it look better I feel like a lot of people, say they go to their parents’ house, and they can’t stand the way their TV looks, either it’s super bright or it looks all soap opera-y or they can’t hear the dialogue. You can’t always fix all of them, but there are some pretty quick ways to eliminate most of those problems. And people watch a lot of TV on Thanksgiving.
So the first tip is to just change the TV’s picture mode. And this is really easy. You want to find just a button that says settings. If it doesn’t say settings, it’s probably going to be a little gear icon. And from there, there’ll be a menu that says picture. And from there, there’ll be a series of picture modes. most TVs are in either vivid or standard by default. Both of those don’t look as good as they could, so we just recommend changing it to, filmmaker mode, and that’s going to be really accurate. And if you don’t have filmmaker mode, go with movie or cinema.
The next tip is to turn off motion smoothing. You may have heard this called the soap opera effect. This one can be a little tricky because every manufacturer just about calls it a different thing.You really just want to turn everything off.
There’s one more, and this is to pick the right sound mode. If you have a TV that’s just using its built-in speakers, they’re pretty much universally bad because the TVs are so small, they don’t have room for big speakers. If you’re having trouble hearing dialogue in shows or movies or you find that, “Oh, the soundtrack is much louder than the sound effects,” or whatever, you can go in, instead of the picture menu, there’ll be an audio menu. there’s no really best setting because it varies from brand to brand, but you may as well go and just move it to something like amplify or dialogue boost.
CAIRA: I read his guide a while ago because I bought a really cheap projector for my bedroom, and I just couldn’t see anything, even if it was pitch black in there. And I changed the picture setting to, it actually had a cinematic feature, and suddenly I could see, and it was amazing.
CHRISTINE: So it helped?
CAIRA: Yeah.
CHRISTINE: I am going to use these tips because I want to impress my husband. He’s always the one who fiddles with the TV to make it look better because he’s always fiddling with the TV whenever we go somewhere that is not our home. So if I did it, he’d be really impressed. But I am going to have to look at these very in-depth article will have the instructions linked in the show notes, and the article is called Five Things Our TV Expert Does to Instantly Improve a TV’s Performance.
CAIRA: Check it out
CHRISTINE: All right, so now that we’ve got the TV situation set up, we’re taking a hard turn actually here to something that is maybe some of you listening will think this is kind of gross, but I think it’s actually pretty important. We’re pivoting to a different room in the house.
ROSIE: It’s part of life.
CHRISTINE: It’s part of life, the bathroom. When you have guests over and maybe when you’re going to someone’s house, we know that sometimes things can go wrong, and the toilet can clog, right?
CAIRA: Oh God, it’s my worst nightmare, truly.
CHRISTINE: Let’s hear from one of our expert colleagues on what to do if you have a clogged toilet…
ELLEN: Hello, my name is Ellen Earhart, and I cover emergency preparedness and sanitation at Wirecutter. At Thanksgiving or over the holidays, we often have households with a lot of different people there. It can take a real toll on your pipes. There can even be little kids that might stick stuff down the toilet. Clogs happen, and it’s important to know what to do. In a situation where you have a clogged toilet, the water’s probably rising, you might be panicking a little. Your first instinct will probably be to somehow try to get the water off, and you should follow that instinct.
You should know where the water valve is on the toilet. Usually, it’s at the base of the toilet that will close out the water to the toilet. In case something blocks it, and the water is running, and you’re worried it’s going to flow over the toilet. You can just turn off that valve, and then the water will stop. Alternatively, if you can’t find that valve, you can take off the top of the toilet and take out the floating thing and the water should also stop. The other part of that advice to avoid getting gross water all over yourself and the bathroom is when you do go in with the plunger, be sure to fill it with water before you start plunging, otherwise you can get some splash back. You stick it inside the toilet bowl, and you tip it over so that it can fill with water before you plunge it underneath the water.
You can call for help if you aren’t embarrassed and you can’t get the clog out. But if that doesn’t work, if your dad, uncle, grandparents, mom, everyone has tried, then it might be time to call a plumber. I hope everyone has a festive, joyful drama-free Thanksgiving.
CHRISTINE: Watching Caira’s face during that explanation was maybe the most fun I’ve had in a long time.
CAIRA: I can just feel my heart beating, like the sweat just starting to pool around my temples. That feeling of thinking that you’re about to ruin your Thanksgiving because everybody’s going to know that the toilet overflowed. Are you serious?
ROSIE: To me, the main tip actually is to have the plunger readily available so one does not have to ask. Also, we should reiterate that the fill the plunger before you stick it in the bowl trick will only work with a bulb shaped plunger. So check and make sure that that’s the kind of plunger you have. And to be honest, this is actually a really epic piece of advice, I think. Yeah.
CHRISTINE: Life changing.
ROSIE: Potentially life changing.
CAIRA: Okay. Well, on that note, I think we’re going to go to break, and then when we come back, we’re going to just keep the tips rolling for how to solve all your Thanksgiving last-minute problems.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. Hopefully, they won’t be so disgusting.
CAIRA: I think we’re through the worst of it.
CHRISTINE Welcome back to The Wirecutter Show. For today’s episode, we reached out to our colleagues in the Wirecutter newsroom for last minute Thanksgiving prep advice … things that may have slipped through the cracks in the lead up to the holiday like optimizing your TV to watch a football game with family, or ideas for last-minute host gifts you can scoop up on the way to Thanksgiving dinner.
We’re gonna hear now from our colleague, James Austin, a staff writer covering games and hobbies for Wirecutter.
CAIRA: Many of us have been in a situation like this on Thanksgiving or another holiday. You’re sitting around the table or the living room before or after the meal, and people are just sort of awkwardly making conversation. It’s weird pockets here and there. The conversation isn’t flowing. James has some useful advice. Let’s hear it.
JAMES: What we’re going to cover today is just things you can do with what you probably already have in your house, which is a 52 card deck. We found a website called, pagat.com, pagat.com, which is, for my money, the most comprehensive online directory of card games rules. It’s run by a wonderful British professor who hasn’t updated the website design since 1995, but it’s very good at giving you new card games to play. Just a quick recommendation from me. My family, especially on Thanksgiving or when we’re gathering, plays a game called Oh Hell, which is a trick taking game, You can find rules for the game on pagat.com. It’s wonderful, would highly recommend.
Aside from more traditional card games like Go Fish or other trick takers like Spades and Hearts, what I would recommend for a 52 card deck, you can adjust and change it. So one of our card game recommendations is a game called Skull, which is one of the best bluffing games I have ever played. It’s really fun, it’s great at revealing sort of social interactions, and it’s great to play with people you know because I mean, you could tell when your family’s lying, and that’s the whole point of the game.
Another fun sort of social interactive game that you might know, it’s a game called Mafia, otherwise known as Werewolf sometimes. Each player gets a card, and the cards are assigned to roles. And there are two teams really. There’s the mafia team and everybody else. Goal of the Mafia players is to be the last people standing, goal of the everybody else is to get rid of all the mafia players. It’s a really fun sort of, again, social and conversational game built as kind of a parlor game, which is great for any sort of Thanksgiving or family gathering, when you have a lot of people, and kind of want to entertain them for a little while, not talk about things that you may not want to talk about.
ROSIE: The game that James’s family plays, Oh Hell, featured very prominently in this season of Only Murders in the Building.
CHRISTINE: Oh, really?
CAIRA: Oh, really?
ROSIE: Yeah, it was.
CHRISTINE: I like that. In another conversation with James, something I loved that he mentioned is that a game can sometimes be this great way for people who are just socially awkward to give them something to do.
ROSIE: It’s a great equalizer, right?
CHRISTINE: Maybe you can get somebody to stop talking politics, which, you know.
CAIRA: And it’s a way to bond over, because when you’re trying to learn how to play the game, you have a common goal. So it’s just an easy direction to go in.
CHRISTINE: It gives everybody something to do the same thing to do.
CAIRA: Yeah.
CHRISTINE: So I’m kind of bad at games in general, and I have to be lured and to doing them, but something that I’m even worse at is taking family photos. Are you guys good at taking family photos?
ROSIE: Who’s good at family photos?
CHRISTINE: Yeah, I feel like I’m always the last one to think of it, and then I regret that we didn’t do it later, and my eyes are always closed in the photos as well.
ROSIE: Somebody’s are at least.
CHRISTINE: But we have somebody on staff who’s really good at photography and has some great tips about how to take a good family photo.
PHIL: Hello, I’m Phil Ryan and I’m a senior staff writer at Wirecutter. And I cover cameras and photography equipment and printers and scanners and things like that. And today we’re talking about how to take a really great family photo on Thanksgiving. So the main thing is that you need a plan. The basics of this plan are that you need to know who will be in the picture. You need a time and a place and a way to take the picture. Okay. So who will be in the picture? Will it be everyone at the event? Will it just be like the core family that’s hosting the event? And what kind of space do we need and how do we get all of those people to that place? Preferably that place can be outside, I think, because that will be the most convenient for lighting. And most smartphones can make nice photos outside really easily. And that brings us to time, as long as it’s daylight out. Then outside works best so we really want to do that during the day, like while the light is still out, while it’s still strong, do it midday ish. If you can do it like around 2:00, that’ll be really nice. Outside is great, if all else fails, go inside. And in that case, I try to incorporate natural light anyway. In the past, I’ve gone opposite sliding glass doors or opposite a bay window. You don’t want the majority of the light to be behind the group that you’re trying to make the photo of. So find an area or room and think about the background that you’re going to have.
The key to trying to make sure that eyes are open is to take a bunch of photos. Just tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Take like way more than you think you would need and then look through and see them. Sometimes I’ll tap a few before I even say that we’re ready. If you have an iphone you can trigger the camera with an apple watch if you have one. Or you can always set a timer. But its much better to have a person actually operate the camera if you can. So assign this task to someone. A lot of times this can be good for like someone in high school. it’s a nice thing to make something for the family to enjoy later down the line. And everyone will look back on this and remember. And it’s a beautiful thing. The pie will be gone, by the way, this photo lasts. So put the time in and make the plan and do the thing.
CAIRA: Stick to the plan. You don’t want to be backlit.
CHRISTINE: That’s right. You want to know who’s going to take the photo, who’s going to be in the photo, what time you’re doing the photo, and where you’re going to do the photo.
CAIRA: Naturally lighting. And take tons.
CHRISTINE: That’s right. That’s right. I feel like that’s always my family’s problem. We take two pictures, and both of them, my eyes are closed. Or somebody’s eyes are closed.
ROSIE: Yeah.
CAIRA: Natural lighting was my biggest takeaway. Make sure the light is good, and then you can cheat everything else.
CHRISTINE: That’s right.
ROSIE: And also, you’re not necessarily going to get the greatest photo you’ve ever taken in your entire life, but I think posterity, getting the group together, it’s a nice-to-have thing.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. If you’re like me, you’re going to be critical of that photo, but then five years later, you’re going to be so happy about it.
CAIRA: You’ll be happy that to took-
CHRISTINE: Get to see everybody. Yeah, it’s important.
CAIRA: Okay, so we’ve covered things to do before the meal, during the gathering, and now it’s time for after all that.
CHRISTINE: That’s right. Caira, does your family drink a lot of wine at Thanksgiving?
CAIRA: We drink everything.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, we drink a lot of wine at Thanksgiving, and that means there’s always a lot of stemware and delicate glass that needs to be washed at the end of the night. So we have a tip from friend of the pod, Michael Sullivan, who’s going to share how to wash that stack of wine glasses.
MICHAEL: Hi, I am Michael Sullivan, and I’m a staff writer at Wirecutter, and I cover all things kitchen, countertop, appliances, and hand tools.
So I’m usually the bearer of bad news about washing everything by hand, but actually my tip is to wash stemware, wine glasses, your champagne flutes, any stemware in the dishwasher, because you’re actually less likely to drop it and break it if you are washing in the dishwasher. my husband has actually sliced his thumb open with a broken wine glass, and had to get many stitches. So if you have a dishwasher, definitely wash them that way.
I don’t know if a lot of people know this, but you can actually adjust the rack level in your dishwasher, and there are little tabs on the side of the rack in most models, and you can lower it to allow for more space. So if you have really long stemware, that’s a way that you can get them to fit. there’s also a ton of videos online that show you how to do that. I would say, though, there is one exception to that, and that’s if your wine glasses have any sort of gold or platinum or hand-painted elements on them, those you’ll definitely want to wash by hand because the dishwasher will just strip those away over time. So that’s something to keep in mind.
CHRISTINE: I did not know that I could lower the rack on my dishwasher.
ROSIE: It’s such a good tip.
CHRISTINE: I need to go home and check that out.
CAIRA: Yeah.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, that’s really good.
ROSIE: But save your thumbs and get those glasses in the dishwasher, top rack.
CHRISTINE: That’s right. That’s right. No cuts, no dropping,
ROSIE: No drama.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, no drama. Okay, so we’re going to dig in to the Thanksgiving gift that keeps on giving, the leftovers. I don’t know about you, Caira and Rosie, but I don’t often cook Thanksgiving, but when I have a lot of leftovers that I’ve brought home, it’s like after the second day, I do not want to eat them anymore. It’s kind of like the fun is gone, and it just becomes like, “I don’t know what to do with these things.” So we asked our friend, Sam Sifton, founder and editor of New York Times Cooking for a couple ideas on what to do with those turkey leftovers.
SAM: So there are two great recipes for Thanksgiving leftovers. The first is to strip as much meat as you can off of the carcass. If you have breast meat left, make sandwiches, go ahead. That’s fantastic. But all that dark meat, all that crevice meat, all that stuff that you can pull off, and you end up with a kind of pile of torn turkey meat. Combine that with your leftover gravy, and heat it up in a pan until it’s bubbly and bubbly. Spoon that onto toast, and serve with some of the leftover cranberry sauce and maybe some leftover greens, and you’ve got what may be an even better meal than the Thanksgiving meal itself. So that’s number one.
Now you’ve got this empty carcass, this carcass that you’ve ripped everything off of, and that should go into a stock pot to create a really rich and delicious turkey stock that you can use to build out a turkey gumbo, in which maybe the only turkey parts are the broth, and everything else is andouille sausage and chicken thighs and whatever else you put into your gumbo. But the flavor of that broth will bring back the holiday once more. Because gumbo improves after sitting for a little while, I think a turkey gumbo served on the Sunday night following Thanksgiving made on Friday or Saturday and allowed to cure as it were for a day. That’s a great way to ice out the holiday and say, “See you next year.”
ROSIE: Y’all know I’m still obsessed with this gumbo idea. I haven’t stopped thinking about it.
CHRISTINE: Is this your Saturday or Friday or Saturday plan post-Thanksgiving?
ROSIE: Absolutely. You know when I’m done scanning for deals.
CHRISTINE: Yes, that’s right. That’s right.
ROSIE: I’m going to make gumbo.
CHRISTINE: My aunt taught me, who’s Cajun. She taught me how to make gumbo after Christmas a couple times, and it was delightful. And I think I could do that for Thanksgiving. That’d be great.
CAIRA: That’s so nice.
CHRISTINE: If you’re not up for it right after Thanksgiving, and you’re just tired, just freeze the carcass it and do it later.
ROSIE: Best tip of all, actually.
CHRISTINE: There we go.
CAIRA: So we have one final bonus tip. We’re already at the end, you guys.
CHRISTINE: Aw, sad.
CAIRA: But I do have to say, this one’s pretty divisive.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, I feel like this one could harm marriages honestly, if not done in the right spirit.
CAIRA: Yes, well, the person who’s giving us this tip is our boss, Ben Frumin, our editor-in-chief of Wirecutter, so I’m sure he can tell you all more about how this has affected his marriage. So we had to do it. Let’s take a listen.
BEN: Hi, this is Ben Frumin. I am Wirecutter’s editor-in-chief. So my last-minute Thanksgiving advice is you got to start getting ready for Christmas. Let me tell you a little bit about the way that I approach Christmas. I’m Jewish, and growing up Jewish in California, I didn’t celebrate Christmas. And honestly, I felt a little left out. I was a little envious. I always wanted Christmas to be mine. When I got married, my wonderful wife is half-Muslim and half-Christian, and all of a sudden Christmas became mine. And boy oh boy, have I embraced Christmas. So to me, the holiday season, inclusive of Christmas is just this warm, beautiful, charming time with friends and with family. I love Christmas so much that I want to extend the Christmas season as long as possible.
So I will tell you, this year, I set up two Christmas trees. That’s right, in my house, we have not one, but two Christmas trees. I set them up on Sunday, November 3rd. Now, you might say that is abominably early. You might say, “This is madness. Halloween has barely ended. Thanksgiving is weeks away. This guy set up two Christmas trees.” I will tell you, it actually felt a little late to me. This was not my strongest work.
But look, why do I do this? And why is this great advice? Having a Christmas tree, and sitting around with my family, and maybe building a fire, and turning the lights on the Christmas tree, and all being together in our cozy and safe home, there’s something just very, very charming about it. So this is my advice. I know you’re still getting ready for Thanksgiving, but you’re already a little late for getting ready for Christmas, at least according to me.
CAIRA: Ooh, Ben, hot take there. Yeah.
ROSIE: Two full months of nourishing two indoor Christmas trees.
CHRISTINE: I think it’s important to note that Ben has artificial Christmas trees.
ROSIE: Oh, that’s good.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, so there’s no fire danger there. I don’t think you could do this with natural Christmas trees. They would dry out too quickly.
CAIRA: I love Ben, and I love that this is so wholesome. If somebody starts snapping their fingers at me like the day after Thanksgiving being like, “Okay, you guys, time to get ready for Christmas,” I’m crashing out. I’m not okay.
ROSIE: If you’re not early, you’re late.
CHRISTINE: Okay. So Thanksgiving is fast approaching. Rosie, Caira, what are you taking away from this episode for tomorrow?
CAIRA: I really want to switch up my family’s annual game. We play Taboo every year, and we’re sick of it. It basically doesn’t even make any sense anymore. So I think that I want to introduce Bananagrams into the mix.
CHRISTINE: Well, so are you asking someone to you a hostess gift of Bananagrams tomorrow? Maybe?
ROSIE: A gentle suggestion.
CHRISTINE: Just a gentle command. What about you, Rosie?
ROSIE: I’m doing wineglasses in the dishwasher. I know somewhere in the house we have a deck of cards. I’m going to see what we can figure out playing as a group because I think that would be fun.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, I think that’s super fun. I am going to take some of Lauren Dragan’s recommendations for podcasts. I’m not going to be traveling for Thanksgiving this year, but I will be stuck at home with my kids. And I think having some podcasts tuned up will be very helpful in the ever-going conversation and debate about when they get to watch a show. So having some podcasts will be great for us.
ROSIE: I might do that too. That’s actually a really nice idea for me. The one that’s queued up is the Good Whale from Serial Productions. Our colleagues over at Serial. I haven’t listened to it yet. I’m really excited to. I’ve been hearing amazing things, so that’s going to be really fun. Hey, listeners, are you following the show? Because we’d love you to find the follow button in whatever app you listen to top it and you’ll be notified of every new episode of The Wirecutter Show. It’ll automatically download even our special bonus episode coming soon. All about Black Friday.
That’s it for us this week. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. If you want to find out more tips from any of our colleagues at Wirecutter, of course you can go to NY times.com/wirecutter or you can check out the show notes for links. Happy Thanksgiving from us here at The Wirecutter Show to you and yours. Have a good one.
CAIRA: The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Keel. Editing by Abigail Keel. Engineering support from Matty Mazziello and Nick Pittman. Today’s episode was mixed by Katherine Anderson. Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Alicia Buitoupe, and Diane Wong. Wirecutter’s deputy publisher and interim General Manager is Cliff Levy. Ben Frumin is Wirecutter’s Editor-in-Chief. I’m Caira Blackwell.
CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.
ROSIE: And I’m Rosie Guerin.
CAIRA: Thanks for listening.
