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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we turn to our final pre-Thanksgiving call-in. We've done a number of them on a number of Thanksgiving-related topics leading up to today, and don't forget we will be on live tomorrow with more call-ins and some great guests. We will be live tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, but for right now, as you're getting your dinners ready, either in your head or maybe you've started physically preparing already, we're going to ask how is or isn't inflation affecting your Thanksgiving plans tomorrow? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692.

Listeners, has the record high inflation we're experiencing this year caused you to make any adjustments to your usual Thanksgiving plans, where you're going, what you're serving, or how you're sharing the financial responsibility of hosting or of being a guest? Give us a call at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer.

How are you adjusting Thanksgiving because of inflation? Some listeners who enjoy NPR might have heard the recent segment they did on Morning Edition, where a bunch of business reporters tried to make a Thanksgiving meal without spending more than they would have spent in 2020. Spoiler alert: to keep their costs low, they didn't cook a turkey. They had bacon. Yes, bacon as the main dish or the main protein. Some people would probably love that substitute. Instead of butter for their rolls, they used baby food. Yuck, a lot of you are saying.

Instead of canned pumpkin for pie they used sweet potato. Okay, reasonable. Instead of mashed potatoes, they used mashed lima beans. I would probably like that, but most people would probably hate it. They reviewed each dish too [chuckles] on NPR, and some of their inflation-proof sides, like the mashed lima beans and the baby food butter substitute, did not get good reviews.

Listeners, has the high inflation that we're experiencing this year caused you to make any adjustments to your Thanksgiving plans, to where you're going, to what you're serving, to how you're sharing the financial responsibility of hosting or being a guest? Give us a call at 212-433-WNYC. Share your stories and share your tips. If it's not mashed lima beans instead of mashed potatoes for you, what is it? Give us a Thanksgiving inflation-resistant hack that some other listeners out there right now might learn from for their Thanksgiving cooking tomorrow. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer.

Some of the particulars. We see the price of turkey alone has risen about 50% in the past two years, according to NPR. Not just that. An outbreak of avian flu in 46 states has killed more than eight million turkeys in the US this year, we're told. Meaning larger birds may be harder to come by depending on where you are. According to NPR, the price of eggs is up 43% in the past two years, flour prices are up 25%, and butter prices have increased by almost 27%. Practically everything you would buy for a Thanksgiving meal has risen in price, including alcoholic beverages like beer and wine.

In a recent call-in that we did about hosting Thanksgiving and having the general torch passed down from an older generation who used to host Thanksgiving to you - we did that call-in for people hosting their first Thanksgivings - one caller said that he was hosting for the first time. Because of that, he was asking everyone to bring a dish to make the whole thing a little less intimidating. I'm wondering, are any listeners out there right now perhaps doing a similar thing but for economic reasons? The caller in that segment was just daunted by all the prep and all the social and logistical demands of hosting.

Anybody having kind of a more potluck Thanksgiving than you did in the past, and telling your guests that you're going to do that explicitly to help defray the costs because of what's going on with inflation this year? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. I'll throw in on that that some people have always done it that way. I know someone who told me that their parents used to never host, but they would write the uncle a check once a year or so for all the hosting they did, particularly for Thanksgiving, and maybe for other things.

I'm not sure of their whole story, but there was definitely a "We wrote them a check for the Thanksgiving hosting they did in acknowledgment of all the work put in on top of the cost of providing all the food." Maybe your family has always done that, or maybe they're operating differently this year because prices are so high. Maybe that feels too weird to you to write a check to your brother and your sister because they're doing the hosting.

In any case, give us a call and tell us however inflation has changed your Thanksgiving plans this year and how you're compensating, and share some tips and tricks for fellow listeners out there. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @Brian Lehrer. We'll take your calls after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to your calls on Thanksgiving, inflation, and you. Ethan in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ethan.

Ethan: Hey, Brian. How are you doing? Happy Thanksgiving. I just wanted to say, having heard 50% increase in turkey prices, I just got back from Trader Joe's. I got the vegan loaf that's going to serve six people for $13.

Brian Lehrer: Oh.

Ethan: I don't know how much turkey for six people costs, but it's got to be about five times that. For ethical reasons, and to save a turkey - and you can feel like the president at the same time - pardon your own turkey.

Brian Lehrer: [chuckles] Spare the turkey, pardon the turkey. What's in the vegan loaf that you bought?

Ethan: Well, it's turkey, but they tell you it's vegan so it feels better. No, no. It's just all kinds of veggies. I think pea protein. I don't know what they make it out of. I just trust them. When they say vegan, it's Trader Joe's, so I just trust them. It's delicious. That's all I can tell you.

Brian Lehrer: Ethan, thank you very much. How about Jen in North Carolina? You're on WNYC. Hi from New York, Jen.

Jen: Hi. I would like people to be mindful that it's not only a Thanksgiving but really-- For me, for probably the past year since I moved into low-income housing, I really found it necessary to keep my price per meal at $5 per meal. A lot of people might think, "Wow, that's pretty generous," because there are many people who are worse off than me. But getting back to Thanksgiving, honestly I don't think I could afford to-- Well, I know I could not afford to host a Thanksgiving dinner. Fortunately, I'm going to be invited to some friend's house, and I'm bringing the spicy pumpkin cheesecake.

Brian Lehrer: Nice. Jen, thank you very much. A listener tweets, "I've got one word for you, Brian - cabbage." Now, people say that to me a lot. "Oh yes, Brian? That's cabbage," but they don't mean it that way this time. This says, "I've got one word for you, Brian - cabbage. It's still cheap, it's healthy and delicious, and you can make it every which way." There you go. That's from tweeter Isaiah. Jesse in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jesse.

Jesse: Hi. My family never did a traditional Thanksgiving because we're Chinese, so I've never had the turkey, the stuffing, everything like that. Prior to the pandemic, we used to have 30-some people at my uncle's place in New Jersey. We have a huge extended family, so we'd get everybody over there. He moved to Florida right before the pandemic, so that's kind of a bit far to travel. We're just going to my dad's cousin's place in Bayside this year, and we're doing a potluck.

Brian Lehrer: You're doing a potluck?

Jesse: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Is any of that-- Go ahead. You wanted to continue? Go ahead.

Jesse: It's for cost reasons, yes, but also my dad is still going to spring for the roast suckling pig.

Brian Lehrer: There you go. I think you just answered my next question. Because tomorrow on the show, when we're here live on Thanksgiving, one of the call-ins that we're going to do is for immigrants from anywhere and how you've adapted cultural traditions or culinary traditions that you brought with you for Thanksgiving, or maybe not at all. Is that the short answer for you, suckling pig rather than turkey?

Jesse: We've never actually had turkey or stuffing, or any of the mashed potatoes or the traditional sides. It's usually just like a suckling pig, Chinese roast chicken. My uncle used to spring for abalone and he'd stew it. Then we have a family recipe - duck soup and roast pork and a lot of veggies, and a whole lot of things that would look foreign on a traditional Thanksgiving table.

Brian Lehrer: It all sounds great. I'm coming to your house. Save some abalone for me. Jesse, thank you very much. Happy Thanksgiving. Linda in Ridgewood, Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Linda.

Linda: Hi. I'm calling just to say that we have a big family and everyone makes something and brings it, but the person hosting always has a larger financial burden. What I think this year I'm going to do is get a gift certificate for their favorite restaurant and just give it to them at the end of the day to say thank you for their work and all the expense.

Brian Lehrer: Very nice. Have you ever done that before? Does that feel weird at all to give kind of a cash gift?

Linda: It does. It does in a way because I'm making creamed spinach and mashed potato, which is a lot of work for 40 people or whoever will show up. I offered to bring some smoked back from the butcher, which would be expensive, but they declined the offer. I figured this might be a way to pay them back-

Brian Lehrer: Very nice.

Linda: -and say thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Linda, thank you very much. Happy Thanksgiving to you. Camille in Roslyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Camille.

Camille: Hi. I was just saying that a German supermarket chain, Lidl, L-I-D-L, opened near where I live, and they are advertising a Thanksgiving dinner with a 13-pound turkey, sides, pumpkin pie. You have to cook it yourself. I think even milk is included for $30, and supposedly it feeds 8 to 10 people. Come on out to Jericho Turnpike and Herricks Road, and you can get your Thanksgiving feast for $30. It's a very nice store. They have wonderful bread, and a lot of the prices are quite reasonable.

Brian Lehrer: Good tip, Camille. Thank you very much. Anybody in proximity of that part of Long Island, there's a tip. I know there are some stores, including some of the big chain stores, that have said they're going to try to not price gouge on Thanksgiving fixings, or maybe places like that. Or actually doing loss leaders hoping that even if they're going to take a little bit of a bath on a combo, like she was just describing, they're going to develop new customers for the future. Who knows? Maybe it's that kind of thing, but there are deals out there if you can find them. Ron in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ron.

Ron: Oh. Hi, Brian. Brian, the man, the legend. It caught me [unintelligible 00:13:08], sorry. Very easy tip. You go to the supermarket and you buy something called celery hearts, which costs, say, $2.50. Then you look at just the whole thing of celery for $1.50 or $1.25, which is basically just the celery hearts without the ends cut off. You save yourself $1.50 with three seconds of labor by cutting off the ends. There's a lot of different things like that. That's an inflation buster right there.

Brian Lehrer: There you go. Celery rather than celery hearts. Let's see if we got new ones coming in on Twitter. Oh, somebody says the proper question to the Trader Joe's shopper should have been how many vegans are in a vegan loaf. Hahaha. How many vegans does it take to make a whole vegan loaf? Okay, I'll ask a vegan. Eddie in Manhattan, you get our last 15 seconds. Hi there.

Eddie: All right. Great, great. This year there's going to be no dead bird as a centerpiece. We are doing a lentil loaf, and you will see that it tastes just like meatloaf. You have recipes on many cookbooks. The New York Times has a good section on vegan food. Also, it helps the environment, it helps your health, and it also helps the animals, of course. You don't have to kill anyone. Last but not least, you cannot be an environmentalist if you eat meat. Look at the documentary called-- oh, I forgot it. The Cowspiracy. It's a free document--

Brian Lehrer: Eddie, I got to run, but thank you very much. Getting the [unintelligible 00:14:59] in there at the last second. I didn't ask him how many lentils in a lentil loaf. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. No matter what you make, no matter where you are, we will be here live to keep you company tomorrow morning at 10:00.

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