Don't sweat Thanksgiving menu! It always works.

Cooking the Thanksgiving feast tends to stress people out. Not me. It’s a lot of work, but it’s predictable and premeditated. You don’t need to make a bunch of decisions and you don’t have to worry whether your menu is up to snuff. On Thanksgiving, you just cook traditional stuff and everyone overeats then heads for the couch.

On all other days besides Thanksgiving, if your menu is not up to snuff, guests will be passing judgment. Maybe I’m imagining this. Polite guests would never pass judgment. But I have, on occasion, been an impolite guest. I am probably a horrible person. Or just menopausal.

But back to Thanksgiving.

Nobody is a horrible person when Macy’s has been strutting marching bands all day and turkey smells are wafting around. I scour food magazines for weeks beforehand – this is enough to make anyone think their menu will never be up to snuff – and cooking Thanksgiving still doesn’t worry me. I know that deep down, people just want the same old menu.

Sure there are the deal breakers: Stuff the turnkey/don’t stuff it; rice or mashed potatoes; giblets in the gravy vs. smooth, marshmallows on top of the sweet potatoes or not? But these debates are easily mediated. Take a vote beforehand, and if necessary, cook it both ways.

Everybody wins at Thanksgiving. Especially me. I just cook, and smile, and cook, and sip.

I’ve made all of these recipes so many times they’re practically memorized, and they were handed down to me from Ages Past. The real proof? No guest, not ever, not once, has done anything to make me believe they were anything less than perfectly satisfied at the Thanksgiving table. And I would know if they were faking it. But more importantly, on this one day, I simply wouldn’t care.

So now I'm curious: What's the lineup for your Thanksgiving menu this year?