My Favorite Thanksgiving Tradition: The Best of Two Worlds
For my husband and me, Thanksgiving is an international delight. My family is Italian and Irish. His is Latin American. When he was growing up, my husband and his family did not celebrate our American holiday. But since they’ve moved to the United States, they have embraced it wholeheartedly.
Dinner at our house is a culinary tour de force with the best traditional American, Italian, and Latin American foods you can imagine. Of course, we have turkey with stuffing (pavo con pan relleno), mashed potatoes (pure de papas), and veggies. We also have my Uncle Joe’s famous antipasto with the sharpest of provolone cheese, pepperoni, and artichokes, as well as my mother-in-law’s mouthwatering lechon and ensalada Russa. Lechon, a holiday dish in South America, is a whole or quarter roasted pig. And ensalada Russa, or “Russia salad,” is simply potato salad with peas, carrots, and hard-boiled eggs.
After hours of eating, chatting, drinking sidra (apple cider), and listening to Uruguayan folk music, the meal is topped off with good ole American apple pie… and a game of soccer. Truly the best of both worlds.
[Ed. Note: What is your #1 favorite Thanksgiving tradition? Let us know right here.]Wendy Montes de Oca
Wendy Montes de Oca, MBA is President of Precision Marketing and Media, LLC and publisher of the popular marketing and business building newsletter, Precision Marketing. She is an online marketing and direct response expert with nearly 20 years of experience leading the marketing efforts for top publishers such as Agora/Early to Rise, Weiss Research, and NewsMax as well as Fortune 500 companies such as General Electric, Chase Manhattan Bank, CitiGroup, and Automatic Data Processing.
Her consulting clients (past and present) is like a "Who's Who" including top copywriters, anti-aging nutritionists, online publishers, supplement companies, travel service providers, political websites and more!
Her background includes multi-channel marketing (print, email, direct mail, radio, TV) with expertise in direct response marketing for the Web. Her marketing initiatives helped bring in millions of dollars in revenues for the companies she has worked for.
Wendy received a Bachelor of Science degree from St. John's University and a Master of Business Administration degree from Nova South Eastern University. Throughout her career, she has been recognized with various awards for quality, innovation, teamwork, and new product/new business development.
She is also a distinguished speaker at marketing conferences such as Specialized Information Publishers Association (SIPA) and author of several marketing and business articles for Early to Rise, Makepeace Total Package, and Target Marketing, just to name a few. Her blog, www.musclemarketing.blogspot.com was named by marketing industry staple, Best of Web, as "top internet marketing blog." For more information visit www.precisionmarketingmedia.com.