Not cooking? Go out for your Thanksgiving dinner
My mother had an epiphany one year: She hated cooking Thanksgiving dinner and wasn’t going to do it anymore. Unfortunately for my family, she had this revelation on Thanksgiving Day, and my father had to scramble to find a place to take his four small children, his impossibly snobby mother-in-law, her pixilated husband (he drank a bit on festive occasions) and my stubborn mother. He spent the whole morning on the phone, calling almost every restaurant in Indianapolis before piling us all into the car and driving us to the nearest VFW Hall where the buffet included roast turkey, sweet potatoes and “hot dog fried rice,” a dish I have – thankfully! – never seen since.
I haven’t cooked a Thanksgiving meal myself since 1982 and have no intention of starting up the tradition ever again. Why should I? There are so many fine local restaurants offering to do all the hard work for me. For people like me – who just want to sit down, unfurl a napkin and be served – we’ve compiled a list of places that are open and serving some kind of dinner. We’re not fussy. It can be a traditional holiday meal with turkey and green bean casserole or Peking duck or even a Town Topic double cheeseburger. As long as a place is open for business, it’s fair game.
