by Dustin Rhodes

I am grateful for a lot of things—food on the table, a roof over my head, the fact that I am about to leave The South forever and ever—but Thanksgiving itself is not one of them. Pardon my bluntness, but Thanksgiving food is disgusting.

What self-hating person invented green bean casserole? Did a masochist create sweet potato casserole, with that cloying marshmallow topping that—just thinking about it—makes me queasy and diabetic? Vegans had the chance to reinvent the terror that is the Thanksgiving dinner spread, but instead they developed Tofurkey—a gelatinous, rubbery abomination that is like eating a melted pair of Crocs with a bucket of salt.

Do I sound bitter?

I am grateful for the fact that, for the past 12 years, I have spent Thanksgiving with a couple of dozen vegans, so we are spared the dead animals, the annoying relatives, and for one day—well, one meal—we experience the world as a vegan utopia. Save for the fact that someone (READ: MANY PEOPLE) inevitably makes a vegan version of a dish that should not exist at all.

But I digress!

Here me out, vegans and those desperately leaning in that direction: You don’t have to follow these dumb traditions. A few years ago, I decided to rebel, and started bringing—gasp!—completely random dishes to our sacred Thanksgiving potluck.

I expected to be the only one to eat my pasta e fagioli, the ridiculously overcomplicated kale Caesar salad which necessitated that I make baguettes from scratch then turn them into delicate garlicky croutons; I made a wild mushroom risotto instead of yet another dish with 10 pounds of thyme so it screams T H A N K S G I V I N G. I also flipped the bird at pumpkin pie, but because I am no hater of actual pumpkin I made a pumpkin cheesecake (recipe here).

The most sacrilegious thing I have done is to pay tribute to the very smart Jewish people who flock to Chinese restaurants on Christmas Day; I made a Szechuan tofu dish with a marinate consisting of fresh squeezed orange juice—another overcomplicated recipe, sure, BUT IT WAS ACTUALLY DELICIOUS; and the whole thing disappeared in five minutes.

You know what this blasphemy got me?

Well, thanks for asking: It made me popular. The food I make and bring gets devoured every year. I take home clean serving pans and plates now—unlike those deluded souls who make vegan stuffing and will be eating it for the next six months because no one wanted to touch it.

I give you permission to make the biggest bowl of vegan mashed potatoes on earth—because I am not a monster. And also, because it’s one of the very few things on a vegan’s Thanksgiving table that is not gross.