Turkeys Have Had Better Days

A turkey named "Courage"

A confession:  I’m going to have some turkey at some point today, and I’m going to enjoy it, despite the gruesome slaughter of Sarah Palin’s turkey last year and despite the well-deserved pardon of “Courage”, above. If you are hungry today, you couldn’t  do a lot better than this vegetarian menu  that was released to the press (in part) before Obama’s first state dinner.  Personally I would have added some curry or something more Indian, for some spiciness.   It was “mostly” vegetarian in honor of the guest of honor, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.  (Read more about it here).  It was difficult to find the menu, though.  Thanks to TPM, here is part of it:

A short summary of the menu:

Potato and eggplant salad with White House arugula and onion seed vinaigrette

Red lentil soup with fresh cheese

Roasted potato dumplings with tomato chutney

Chick peas and okra

Or,  Green Curry Prawns with collard greens and coconut aged basmati

For dessert, pumpkin pie tart and pear tatin. They are garnished with mint and lemon verbena from the White House garden.  [the organic garden!] With coffee, the White House will serve cashew brittle and pecan pralines.

Not bad, except prawns aren’t vegetarian, and even worse, they are an endangered species!  But the rest of it sounds pretty good.  I’m an aspiring vegetarian myself, and I would have loved this dinner.    And for all that I feel our new president could be doing better, he could not have hosted  a more beautiful first State Dinner.  (But I gotta point this out — that wooden building they were calling a “tent” was not a tent!)  And of course, the Obama’s have a lot of class.  I also admit to gushing over this beautiful dress:

The President and First Lady at their first state dinner, November 2009

Yes, the Obamas have class and present an attractive face of America to the world, unlike this bull-ette in a china shop, Sarah Palin (from last year).  Remember the gruesome turkey slaughter in the background as Palin licked her own wounds as she pardoned a turkey in Wasilla.  Or did she shoot it?  All I remember is a  lot of blood and limp, headless turkey necks. See below:

I apologize if that was the bloody version of that video. I could not make myself watch it again, and not because of the ‘real’  turkeys either.

Happy Thanksgiving!