Bullshit Your Way Through the Holidays

THE PRESSURE to “cook” (or even, ugh, “contribute to”) a holiday dinner can be overwhelming and annoying. Take it from me: You’ll only fuck it up. Just pay the professionals! For traditional Thanksgiving or Hanukkah fare, preorder from Kenny & Zuke’s (1038 SW Stark), which offers a full-blown take-out menu featuring garlic mashed potatoes ($5.50 a pound), honey-glazed whole chickens with apple stuffing ($13.75), and braided challah ($9). Or if your fat family already ate all the leftovers, swing by Downtown Freddie Brown’s (555 SW Oak), where it’s always Thanksgiving, year-round, in sandwich form. Get all the staples—freshly roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, gravy—in four different sandwich configurations, each $7.50 or less. And if you want to show up all the boring food everyone else is making, get some help from Latin American restaurant Teote (1615 SE 12th). They have a couple of phenomenally generous take-out meals that feed three people for less than $40—and come with everything from grilled lamb chops or chorizo arepas and beans, Teote salad, and fried plantains. With fine folks like these, you don’t need to cook a goddamn thing.