In my experience, divey comfort food or BBQ joints usually have the best mac if you don't wanna make it at home. But a nice baked one at home cannot be beat if you have the right recipe. Its all about the roux and good mix of cheeses imo.
We went to a surf and turf place for thanksgiving one year no one wanted to cook and that was a gamechanger for me. Didnt miss any of the typical thanksgiving food at all.
yeah I really could do without all of the fuss in 2020 my wife and our roommate at the time did basically everything homemade and it was really good but such a hassle that I'll never do it again
ok so I have learned that the census bureau does not consider PA "midwest" but you tell me if Pittsburgh has more in common with Cleveland or Philadelphia
The last few years I've hosted Thanksgiving and Christmas and I always switch around what to make for Christmas. I feel like it doesn't need to be held to specific meal items like Thanksgiving does
Biggest stress relief for doing an actual thanksgiving is to not do a full bird. I get a $50 voucher for a turkey from my work and I'll get a few butterball turkey breasts instead. Wayyyyy shorter cook time, less thawing to worry about, and you can do different seasonings on the separate pieces of meat which is fun for me, or they're even small enough to smoke on my grill.
If you look for it there's a post from me where I found out that Buffalo is western New York and not northern New York