Thanksgiving

Pie, the food trend of 2011, is still hot at these Denver spots

Pies used to be seen as the either the coup de grace on Thanksgiving or snarky protesters' tool of choice. (Remember when Ann Coulter, Ralph Nader and Jeff Skilling, former president of Enron, were all pied?) Then in 2011 the lattice-topped treat hit the big time, and Nation's Restaurant News declar ... More >>

The city will renew food-bank inspections in 2013

My five worst school lunches

Public school students are being awfully whiny about their school lunches right now. The reason is because the United States Department of Agriculture just restructured standards for school lunches for the first time in over a decade, and now students have to eat more fruits, vegetables and whole gr ... More >>

Occupy Denver: Woman leads police on a chase to donate food on Thanksgiving

Depending upon what you'd expect of a Thanksgiving spent with Occupy Denver in the Angriest City in America, you might or might not be surprised to learn what was on the menu. Including a short (but sweet) police chase.

Medical marijuana dispensary re-review: Two years later at Walking Raven

Aside from 4/20, there's really no better day for celebrating cannabis than Thanksgiving. A good spliff goes great with stuffing, potatoes and entire turkeys waiting to be devoured. So to get your munchies going, here's our Thanksgiving day Mile Highs and Lows dispensary review of Walking Raven.

Pose and Repose

Stressed? Here are five places to unwind with yoga this Thanksgiving

Corepower Yoga​With many of us surrounded by family and a huge, high-pressure meal to cook, Thanksgiving can be stressful. Lucky, a number of yoga studios around town had the same thought: people might need a way to relax. We've put together a guide to places to practice the stress-relieving, ... More >>

Colorado beer calendar: Sausage at Denver Beer Co; Black Friday at Copper Kettle

Avery Brewing has created an online petition at change.com, urging the brewery's fans to support an effort in Boulder to change the zoning code to allow breweries, wineries and distilleries located in industrial parts of the city to open restaurants. Right now, those businesses are only allowed to o ... More >>

Five wines that are guaranteed to make Thanksgiving feel like a party

Sometimes, just sometimes, big holiday celebrations can feel like a bit of a grind. Whoops, did we say that out loud? It's not that we don't love our families -- we do. But we suspect that you'd agree that occasionally these annual gatherings can feel like more of an obligation and less of a celebra ... More >>

Over the Weekend: Sting sings, Thanksgiving on a stick, skiers shred, Williams & Graham bows

Big pics below.​Did you spend your whole weekend cleaning the house? Silly you! Plenty of other Denverites were enjoying the sort of stuff captured by Westword reporters and photogs on our slideshow page and Backbeat Online, Cafe Society and Show and Tell blogs. Check out highlights below pert ... More >>

Thanksgiving meals, beer dinners and more on this week's culinary calendar

Have somewhere to spend Thanksgiving? Don't worry: Check out our Thursday page for a list of every feast we know about in the metro area. And that's not all; there are also cooking classes, beer dinners and more on this week's culinary calendar. See what's on the menu:

A food critic learns how to survive the holidays and still lose weight, plus a bonus refeed workout video

Over the last few months, I went from the worst shape of my life to the best while continuing to eat like a food critic. Don't punch me in the face; instead, read how I did it in part six of this series: Three weeks into Bonza Bodies and the Jamie Atlas plan, I'd achieved a precarious balance: I wa ... More >>

Get your Thanksgiving dinner from the Dollar Tree (PHOTOS)

J. Wohletz​With national cram-your-gut-and-pass-out-on-your-couch day approaching, many food- insecure Denverites may be wondering how they will squeeze a huge Thanksgiving din-din out of a lean wallet. But never fear -- whenever there are poor locals looking for a holiday feast on the cheap, ... More >>

Gobble, Gobble, Drink, Drink

Learn how to brine, roast and carve a turkey over happy hour tomorrow at Tony's Market

someecards.com​It will soon be Thanksgiving, the yearly occasion where we can stuff ourselves until we surrender and then wallow on the couch for a few hours. But, as we all know, not everyone has fond memories of the holiday. In fact, just about every Thanksgiving feast with my family include ... More >>

Five Thanksgiving buffet foods that have nothing to do with Thanksgiving

​The only thing Americans love more than a buffet is a holiday buffet. We also love that the fourth Thursday every November is a thinly-veiled justification for a massive meat-and-starchy gorge by evoking images of shysty Pilgrims and wary Natives sharing corn on the cob. But the real gem of t ... More >>

Thanks to YouTube, the entire world can watch your awkward Thanksgiving home video

"What does it look like I'm doing, Jim? Huh?"​ Every family has one: the annoying relative who mans the video camera on holidays, wandering from room to room and narrating the boring gathering in a voice that sounds as if he's welcoming three-year-olds to their first day of preschool. Annoyin ... More >>

Ten things to do for $10 this weekend, November 24-28

Come out this weekend.​It's a four-day weekend, and that means we get to kick off 10 for $10 early this week, with tons of awesome bonus stuff for you to do when you're not stuck in a turkey coma listening to your aunt ramble on about her new kitten. We've got plenty of events to take your tim ... More >>

Turkey-carcass sled comic from 1984: Kenny Be's Hip Tip do-over

Original 1984 turkey-carcass sled comic on the left, 2010 do-over drawing on the right.​ The turkey-carcass sled comic seen above advises that the leftover skeleton from the Thanksgiving dinner can double as an inexpensive toboggan. It sounds like a ridiculous idea, but it is based on a true-l ... More >>

The pilgrims liked beer: Here's how you can honor them over the Thanksgiving holiday

This sweater could win you beer.​There are many rumors about the pilgrims and beer. Some say they landed on Plymouth Rock because they ran out of the sudsy stuff. Others claim they drank it on the voyage over because it was safer than water. Whatever the truth, beer and pilgrims will always ... More >>

Tomorrow: Local restaurants serving Thanksgiving meals

A Flickr photo.​The Cafe Society blog will be closed tomorrow -- but the following restaurants will be open and serving turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie and all the other traditional Thanksgiving favorites:

Happy turkey day: We'll be back on Friday

​ We're taking a mini-vacation on Thanksgiving -- so all may eat, drink, sleep and reconcile with family members -- but your regularly scheduled bloggery will be right back here on Friday. Enjoy the bloodbath break. Follow @CafeWestword on Twitter

Five foods better than turkey for your Thanksgiving feast

​Everyone knows turkey sucks. It's dry, it's boring and the only reason people eat it is because it conveniently feeds a lot of people at the same time. That is a stupid reason to eat anything. And it's especially stupid on a holiday whose entire purpose is to eat as much as possible -- but do ... More >>

Top five compliments NOT to give the cook on Thanksgiving

Bean there, done that.​Holiday gatherings with the family are not always known for their spirit of congeniality, and if your family doesn't resemble a tranquil Currier & Ives lithograph in the first place, inevitably at least one relative will pull a hurty-dur, either on purpose or not, and sa ... More >>

Rocky Flats to open as Thanksgivingland theme park: Kenny Be's Worst-Case Scenario

From the Kenny Be vault. Originally published on November 18, 2004. Thanksgivingland: Extreme Thanksgiving fun for the pilgrim in everyone.​ The U.S. Department of Energy's refusal to provide funds for a Cold War museum at Rocky Flats is a true blessing. What is needed at the site is a tourist ... More >>

Five Front Range restaurants that are open on Thanksgiving

​Can't make it home for Thanksgiving? Dreading cooking a feast for your relatives? Maybe it's a good year to go out to eat. And we're not talking about some convoluted stereotype focused on the take-out Chinese food place down the street -- we're talking good food at good places around town. ... More >>

Thanksgiving decorations struggle for freedom: Kenny Be's Yard Arteology

Yard Arteology: The study of neighbors through lawn ornaments... Figure 88a. Country Club: Cross-dressing goose behind bars.​ In Douglas County, the imprisoned pilgrim pictured above might actually have constituted a political statement about our founding fathers and the current state of Ameri ... More >>

What week is it? A breakdown of everything you could be celebrating, Nov. 22 - 28

​Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and with it, the blessed weekday off where not only is your pre-noon drinking non-problematic, it's downright acceptable. But Thanksgiving on Thursday won't help you get away with being drunk at work today -- and to that end, we've got you covered with ... More >>

Six stellar Thanksgiving wines to savor on Turkey Day

​You can try to deny it all you want, but Thanksgiving is a mere nine days away. That's right: In exactly one week and two days, you'll be up to your eyeballs in gravy, green bean casserole and drama. If your family is anything like mine, you'll wise up and plan to face the day armed with cop ... More >>

Spicy Pickle makes Pilgrims happy with the Harvest Panini

​Props to the Spicy Pickle for having the guts to roll out its new Harvest Panini, essentially a Thanksgiving -- or Pilgrim -- sandwich remade and given a less holiday-specific (or politically thorny) name. I have a long and delicious history with Thanksgiving sandwiches but have bemoaned the ... More >>

Six absurdly naughty food porn pics

When you think of porn, do the images popping into your sex-deprived skull remind you of the time you nailed that hot sorority chick, or perhaps when you were dressed in nothing but a smile and opened the door to the casa of love? Hold on to those warm and fuzzy thoughts, because these are not tho ... More >>

Beating the Drumsticks

Leo's Manhattan at Jax Fish House

Top ten ways we've ruined turkey

We love bacon too, but honestly ...​Admit it: There are really only two good ways to enjoy Thanksgiving turkey: fresh from the oven and carved on the table on the big day itself, and on sandwiches for days on end afterward. Everything else is more or less a sociological experiment -- a study, ... More >>

American traditions: Thanksgiving and suing the crap out of your neighbor

As sad and time-wasting as frivolous lawsuits can be, they're a part of American life. Sometimes they can be downright funny (except for the people involved). Remember the dumbass Washington D.C. judge who sued his dry cleaners for $54 million over a pair of lost pants? Fortunately he lost that c ... More >>

Wake-Up Call: Let's give thanks for political turkeys

​On Saturday, a group of Tea Party activists gathered at the Colorado State Capitol to celebrate Thanksgiving -- and small government -- by reading the Mayflower Compact. For political theater that laid an egg, it didn't come close to the turkey served by Roy Romer-era Lieutenant Governor Mik ... More >>

The Second Annual Thanksgiving Dinner Fantasy Draft: What dishes would you pick?

A Flickr photo.​It's that time of year again: Time to gather around a table of people you don't know or don't like, shovel uninspiring food into your face and then retire to the couch and wait for the Tryptophan to get working. But what if it wasn't that way? What if you could build your perf ... More >>

Twitter Tuesday: Thanksgiving Twitpoll

The first Thanksgiving, painting by Jean Louis Gerome Ferris​ It's almost Thanksgiving and that means it's time to take a few days off of work, see all the family you so carefully avoid most of the year and stuff yourself until you want to puke and/or pass out. The normal way to celebrate Tha ... More >>

Culinary calendar for the week ahead

Look overwhelming? Check out the places in Denver to get your feast on -- without having to cook.​As always, our online Food & Drink listings contain dozens of culinary events across Colorado, including where to eat Thanksgiving dinner if you don't feel like cooking but still want to feast. A ... More >>

Thanksgiving traditions that should die. Now.

​Every year, on a seemingly random day at the end of November, America celebrates Thanksgiving. (Canadians, as usual, get this completely wrong and hold it in October.) It's a day of tradition, a day to give thanks. And a day, or so it's become over time, that we all do inexplicable things j ... More >>

Free grub at Tony's Market

​The new Broadway location of Tony's Market (right across the street from the Westword offices, at 950 Broadway) was giving away nibbles of their complete Thanksgiving dinner feast today during the lunch hour. Unfortunately, if you're reading this now, you already missed the fun. The good ne ... More >>

How not to relinquish control of your Thanksgiving dinner

Andre Baranowski​A few years back, I spent Thanksgiving with the large family of a friend whose house was tucked into the side of a mountain somewhere near Durango. Like most families at Thanksgiving dinners, we had segregated ourselves into two groups: those who were slamming wine and watchi ... More >>

Mile High Murder: Kevin Stunes convicted of murdering girlfriend Nancy Bannock last Thanksgiving

View Larger Map This just in from the Adams County District Attorney's Office. Late yesterday, Kevin Duane Stunes was convicted of first-degree murder for killing Nancy Bannock last Thanksgiving at 1616 E. 78th Avenue, an area captured in the graphic above (if you have problems seeing the image, cl ... More >>

Hot for Teacher

At least the Graland sex scandal gives me something to talk about at holiday parties.

Pumpkin Martini

Aix

Drunk of the Week

Stout Pub

Dead Bird Walking

Two turkeys will meet their fate.

Check, Please!

Readers give our food critic something to chew on.

Talkin' Turkey

A tale of two Thanksgiving meals.

Bye, Bye Brazil