Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Thanksgiving Meal Preparation – Tradition vs. Technology

Posted by Leah Ludwig

Image from Mashable.com and YouTube.com
For most, long gone are the days of rolling out of bed on Thanksgiving morning, driving over to grandma's and learning how to create in sheer magnificence the traditional Thanksgiving meal with just a ratty old cookbook and grandma’s amazing culinary talents – passed down from generation to generation of slaving over Thanksgiving meals.

This all hit me when I stumbled across some very interesting and real-time articles on how people can craft their holiday meals via YouTube and tech gadgets galore. One of the articles which knocked my old school Thanksgiving meal socks off was Mashable’s “How to Cook a Complete Thanksgiving Meal Using YouTube.” This article displays 12 YouTube videos on Thanksgiving meal how-tos from roasting the perfect turkey, cooking all the critical sides like mashed potatoes and stuffing to creating the dessert course of pumpkin pie AND incorporating the proper table setting and musical ambiance to enhance your dining experience.

Then I found myself scoping out another Mashable article, “6 Tech Fixes for Your Thanksgiving,” featuring ways that people can make the holidays less stressful by putting their gadgets to good use. The article shares tips such as using a free smartphone app for your Thanksgiving menu. The app helps you pick out a menu; it includes recipes, generates a shopping list and helps you lay out a step-by-step schedule for cooking. Here are a few other tech features for you futuristic Thanksgiving meal preparers:

- A vegetarian cooking app for your vegetarian guests.

- An iGrill thermometer which enables you to connect your mobile device through Bluetooth and monitor your bird’s temperature without ever opening the oven door.

- A Belkin Chef Stand which is a non-slip base that keeps your tablet from moving around - all while the stylus maintains a clean screen as you navigate your way through various recipes.

- A MyFitnessPal Calorie Counter and Diet Tracker which is a smartphone app that can be downloaded for free and helps you get back on track with your calorie counting after a hearty Thanksgiving meal.

Perhaps it’s time for me to teach grandma a thing or two about combining traditions and technology to create this year’s Thanksgiving meal. All I know is that all this talk about Thanksgiving meal prep is making me very hungry and excited for this year’s festivities. I think I will stick to the tried and true traditions of jamming as many family members into one kitchen to create a Thanksgiving masterpiece using the traditional methods; however, these tips may be an interesting way to mix things up in the years to come.

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