We're gearing up for Thanksgiving with T minus five days before we have to hurl that bird into the oven. We're going to roast turkey, bake wonderful white bread rolls, mash good old Idaho potatoes, make stuffing, pass a sauce made from native cranberries, and serve all-American apple alongside pumpkin and pecan pies. Thanksgiving is a very American holiday, and all the foods are so very...American.

Except at my house. I've griped before a bit about some of the more undesirable side dishes on the Thanksgiving table. These are things that are still very American, familiar to a lot of other people who will be eating the same thing at the same time as you next Thursday. The funny thing is, the items that I will never take off my Thanksgiving table are not American at all. They're Korean. Chinese. Everything else, even Mexican. 

My Dad can't eat a meal without rice. For him, we serve steamed white rice alongside his stuffing (which he never actually touches anyway). My Mom says that no matter what kind of brining, super shiatsu massaging, or basting I do to the turkey, it will always be dry without kimchee. Gravy? She reserves that for mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce for toast the next morning. With turkey, she needs kimchee. Last year, I made a roasted butternut squash soup and won ton soup. If we could, we would have served them like restaurants do, yin and yang in the same bowl. Dessert is not so unusual, though I think I might be making a tres leches cake this year, in addition to pumpkin pie.

Then again, who's to say it's not all American? Thanksgiving is about, well, giving thanks. We do that by spending time with our families and eating, whether it's kimchee or cranberry sauce. Just not the canned jelly stuff that comes out ribbed, okay?