Here are three suggestions for upgrading your Thanksgiving meal.
Collard seasoning
Brasmyne Holmes first developed her seasoning blends as chef for State Farm Arena, where she made massive batches of them for meals served at Atlanta Hawks games. She used that experience to launch Decatur-based Tiger Life Gourmet in 2020 with a line of eight seasoning blends, ranging from garlicky steak to gingerbread cookies. For Thanksgiving, you might try her greens and vegetable seasoning on collards. It’s a mix of minced onion and garlic, apple cider vinegar powder, smoked paprika, ground brown mustard and black and cayenne pepper. Besides collards, Holmes recommends it for other greens, such as cabbage and kale, and even for roasted asparagus.
$9 per 2.5-ounce container. Available at Kinship Butcher & Sundry, the Sistah Shop, Bottled Treasures and tigerlifegourmet.com.
Handout
Handout
Dinnerware
Thanksgiving meals require dinner plates, salad plates and sometimes bowls for soup and large pasta bowls that are perfect for guests who scoop up more than one dessert. But you don’t need 12 place settings of fine china; the contemporary dinnerware from Stone Lain can augment what you already own. This sturdy stoneware is tough enough for your tiny cousins, but elegant enough for your aunts and grandparents. We love the Lauren pattern in off-white with earth tone speckles. The ridges make the pieces easy to hold if you’re serving buffet-style. At this price, you might be tempted to stock up.
$94.99 for 16 pieces. Available at stonelain.co.
Brandon Amato
Brandon Amato
Chocolate charcuterie board
This Thanksgiving, you can have the flavors of pumpkin pie, apple pie and even pecan pie wrapped up in chocolate when you put out a chocolate charcuterie board from Bitzel’s Chocolate. You can visit the 7,000-square-foot shop in Suwanee and watch chocolate truffles and bark bites being made, then choose from more than 31 flavors. Especially for Thanksgiving, they are making pumpkin spice and caramel apple truffles, and those flavors, as well as pecan pie, also are available in bark bites. This way, everyone gets to sample and find their favorites, and no one is overloaded with pastry and cake. It’s a perfect way to end your Thanksgiving meal.
$19.99 per box of nine truffles, $18 per 12-pound container of bark bites. Available at 453 Northolt Parkway, Suwanee, or bitzelschocolate.com.
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