I wasn't familiar with Thanksgiving until I arrived in the United States from India. I loved the concept of it right away: expressing gratitude and appreciation. But it took me a while to get used to the food that was traditionally served during this very American holiday -- at least in Ohio, where I was going to college, and where kind friends from my classes would invite me to their homes for the Thanksgiving feast.

The green beans were OK, though not as spicy as I would have liked them to be. Ditto for the mashed potatoes. (In India, we coarse-mashed our potatoes then sautéed them with onions and chilies). The boiled corn was acceptable, though it was too soft and got stuck in my teeth, not like the crunchy kernels we roasted over a fire and rubbed with lemon at home. The cranberry sauce, ridged from the can, was an amazing red I'd never seen in food items. I ate it with a spoon, slowly, suspiciously.

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By the way, Gina Misiroglu of Red Room put me in touch with the KitchenDaily/AOL people, which is one of the great ways she's bringing traffic to Red Room and getting attention for Red Room's authors.