It wasn't the traditional cooking most people do. For me, as a young chef, Thanksgiving meant going to work in the kitchen at places like Gotham, JoJo and Jean-Georges.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I've always had fond memories of cooking Thanksgiving.
I'm not from the States, so Thanksgiving, for me, was never a huge tradition.
Thanksgiving was always a favorite holiday for me. The preparation was fun! My grandma and I would walk to the butcher on Jamaica Avenue in Queens, order the bird, and buy all the fixings at the market.
In deference to American traditions, my family put our oven to rare use at Thanksgiving during my childhood, with odd roast-turkey experiments involving sticky-rice stuffing or newfangled basting techniques that we read about in magazines.
A lot of Thanksgiving days have been ruined by not carving the turkey in the kitchen.
Being an Ethiopian-born, Swedish-raised chef, there's nothing traditional about my Thanksgiving spread.
In a city like New York, especially for young professionals who aren't in a family situation, most people don't cook for themselves. This is the only city I've ever lived in where I eat out every night.
My cooking is so bad my kids thought Thanksgiving was to commemorate Pearl Harbor.
The culinary tradition in my family is very strong. My mother, a very wise woman, spent the better part of her life in a kitchen. It's a very strong part of her identity. I grew up there next to the fire.
As governor, when I visited our troops in Kuwait and Iraq, I served them Thanksgiving dinner. It was a small gesture compared to their sacrifice.