With Thanksgiving here in the states only two weeks away, and Christmas a little over a month, I've been thinking a lot about holiday food lately. I'm having trouble deciding whether to make a full traditional spread or pepper in some more radical dishes to excite my friends/family. What do you think? Is the holiday meal a sacred institution that requires formal and traditional dishes, or a time of innovation and experiementation - or neither? Also, if one *were* to expirement with new dishes, what would you reccomend for the novice cook (no foie gras here)?

I think it is entirely up to you what you cook. The traditional Thanksgiving meal is nice but I usually offer some choices like sliced beef tenderloin or roast pork loin. I think if you go too radical there are going to be people grumbling but if you are cooking cook what you want to cook. I would tell your guess ahead of time that you are not cooking a traditional meal though.

mmmm...beef tenderloin sounds great! Unfortunately, I am serving quite a few vegetarians so another side of meat may not be a crowd pleaser :(. Good idea on the telling people ahead of time. Maybe I can even solicit their opions to make sure I cover what my guests consider to be "essential" holiday food but modify some of the non essential dishes. Thanks Mark!

you could serve 'radical' canapes and be traditional with the meal. i'm a jealous brit who does'nt get to have two huge feastdays, so i may just salivitate(?) over your descriptions of thanksgiving. by the way, if you have turkey at thanksgiving, what do you have for christmas? now i'm an ignorant brit!