This past Thanksgiving, I rediscovered the yummy potential of rutabaga when my sister, Jackie, and her pal, Fraya (a former chef) made an ultra tasty casserole of rutabaga, sweet potato, and caramelized onion, plus a little Comte for good measure. When I posted my praise for the dish on Facebook, lots of you wanted to know the recipe. So I went back to my sis and asked about it. She said it was completely improvised by her and Fraya. There's no formal recipe, but if you're a comfortable cook, you can follow her lead in this note she sent back to me:

Just a reminder: our deadline for our Thanksgiving Recipe Contest is Sunday, October 28.

If your goat cheese dish is one of the three deemed turkey-worthy, Laura Chenel's Chevre will send this for your conucopia:

Three varieties of LCC's fabulous fresh and aged goat milk cheeses, along with some luscious Gravenstein Apple Chutney and a spicy Fig Jam from their neighbors here in Sonoma, California. It's a seductive pairing, guaranteed to win over fans of football, parade floats, and pumpkin pie alike.

So what're you waiting for? Check the full rules here, and send your recipe to thanksgiving@culturecheesemag.com!

It's nearly that time of year again. The family gathers, sounds of football playing in the background. The table is set. It groans with food: the massive brown bird, the hot stuffing, rich with gravy. Potatoes, sweet and mashed. Pies, at least pumpkin, or sweet potato; sometimes apple and more.

WHAT'S MISSING FROM THIS PICTURE?

It's cheese.

This is odd, because according to the Plymouth Plantation museum, as early as 1627 the Plymouth colony had quite a dairy herd:

With Thanksgiving in just a few days and my super serious diet on hold, I thought I would post up a few alternatives to the old pumpkin pie for the holidays. I'm not much of a cook, nor can I bake, so Jennea, darling, Cottage Cheese Pie please!

First, we have the Fig Goat Cheese Pie with Basil. It's hard to go wrong with figs and goat cheese. Of course, this mini-pie recipe is perfect to prevent that holiday weight.

The Cottage Cheese Pie, my personal favorite, should definitely satisfy your sweet tooth. The chocolatey crumb crust combined with cottage cheese makes for a satisfying dessert after your endless plates of turkey.

Ask anyone who will admit to knowing me: I'm an enthusiastic omnivore. But I'm also an enthusiastic host, with a lot of vegetarians on my roster. This has necessitated some off-the-cuff veggie cooking in the past, especially around ThanksG., when I'm apt to drag various castaways over to my folks' place for dinner. Mom and Dad seem to enjoy the company, but it falls to me to feed the meatless masses.

This has proven to be pretty easy, actually; the holiday is a good excuse to go over the top with rich and savory flavors, especially if you're looking for a main dish to replace turkey*. Pies work really well for this purpose.

As Thanksgiving quickly approaches, I have been thinking about the role of cheese in this traditional feast. It’s a particularly heavy late-afternoon repast with nearly every type of food one can imagine: turkey with gravy, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, roasted squash, cauliflower, chestnuts, parsnips, carrots, various high-starch side-dishes, including all sorts of potatoes, and, of course many different pies, like sweet potato pie and pumpkin pie. The list seems endless. At the end of this culinary hedonistic celebration, who has an appetite for a cheese course? I certainly don’t.

Being the cheese enthusiast that I am, it’s impossible to imagine a feast of gastronomic pleasures without fromage. However, the absence of a dedicated course does not mean that cheese isn’t part of the feast. Indeed, in dishes, like chestnut soup, acorn squash puree, and pumpkin dip, cheese hardly takes a backseat role.