5 Tips for Your Thanksgiving Weekend: Lavin Speakers’ Cooking and Conversation Tips for Your Best Thanksgiving Ever
Happy Thanksgiving from the Lavin team! Like you, we’re excited to sit down with family and good food over the weekend and into next week. But we know that Thanksgiving can also be a stressful time, as we navigate long hours of cooking and family conversations around the dinner table. That’s why we’ve collected 5 tips from our speakers—leading experts on food, communication, and joy—that will help you and your family have your best Thanksgiving yet.
Remember: food is about pleasure.
Too often, we get caught up in the stress of cooking a Thanksgiving feast—and forget that the real point of food is the joy of eating it in good company. “Eating is about a destination or breaking bread or some solitude,” says Stephen Satterfield, host of Netflix’s Peabody Award-winning docuseries High on the Hog, which explores the complex stories behind the food we eat. “The origins give you a profound respect and framework, but the experience of eating is about pleasure.” So if you’re tempted to stress out about what you’re cooking, take a step back and remind yourself of why you’re doing this in the first place.
Think bigger than turkey.
The centerpiece of the Thanksgiving table is usually the turkey. But a series of sides with seasonal ingredients can both elevate your meal and provide options for those at your table who might not eat meat. Chef Bryant Terry, who has spent his career fighting for a more sustainable (and delicious) food system, offers recipes for Southern holiday staples using vegan ingredients and local, seasonal produce. “When you use something from a farm that’s 50 or 100 miles outside the city, it’s going to be so much more flavorful and delicious than something that’s been shipped across the globe,” he says.
Learn to HEAR other people.
Thanksgiving brings together family members from different walks of life: people you love but might not agree with. Fortunately, Harvard prof Julia Minson has developed a framework for having conversations that leave the door open for future dialogue. “The acronym is HEAR,” she explains. “It stands for Hedging, Emphasizing agreement, Acknowledging the other perspective, and Reframing to the positive. You don’t have to change your own convictions. You don’t have to compromise. But you’re showing with every sentence that you’re incorporating the other person’s perspective into your speech.”
Master the follow-up question.
When you’re catching up with a family member you haven’t seen in a while, how many questions is too many? It’s way more than you think. In research on sales calls, Harvard Business School prof Alison Wood Brooks (author of TALK), found that the most successful agents were the ones who asked the most questions. In fact, asking too many questions (4 questions a minute!) is still better than asking too few. And the most important question you can ask is a follow-up question: “You’re showing a very pure and focused interest in them, which feels really good, and you’re listening to what they’re saying.”
Get playful.
When we think about navigating dinner conversations, we don’t usually think about playing together. But “if we can play together, we can live together,” says Cas Holman. A world-renowned designer and author of the hot new book Playful, Cas argues that in a world dedicated to efficiency and focus, play connects us to each other and to ourselves. And play is much broader than we usually think: “For some adults, rearranging the living room is play. Reading is play. A lot of conversations are playful.” This Thanksgiving, ask yourself how you can incorporate moments of playfulness, by yourself and with others.
Want more from these speakers?
Get in touch with us! We’d love to chat about bringing them to your event.
Remember: food is about pleasure.
https://youtu.be/G19ROb-gMsw
Too often, we get caught up in the stress of cooking a Thanksgiving feast—and forget that the real point of food is the joy of eating it in good company. “Eating is about a destination or breaking bread or some solitude,” says Stephen Satterfield, host of Netflix's Peabody Award-winning docuseries High on the Hog, which explores the complex stories behind the food we eat. “The origins give you a profound respect and framework, but the experience of eating is about pleasure.” So if you’re tempted to stress out about what you’re cooking, take a step back and remind yourself of why you’re doing this in the first place.
Think bigger than turkey.
https://youtu.be/4UHDfFUYIeg
The centerpiece of the Thanksgiving table is usually the turkey. But a series of sides with seasonal ingredients can both elevate your meal and provide options for those at your table who might not eat meat. Chef Bryant Terry, who has spent his career fighting for a more sustainable (and delicious) food system, offers recipes for Southern holiday staples using vegan ingredients and local, seasonal produce. “When you use something from a farm that's 50 or 100 miles outside the city, it's going to be so much more flavorful and delicious than something that's been shipped across the globe,” he says.
Learn to HEAR other people.
https://youtu.be/Wxc27MYNGSw
Thanksgiving brings together family members from different walks of life: people you love but might not agree with. Fortunately, Harvard prof Julia Minson has developed a framework for having conversations that leave the door open for future dialogue. “The acronym is HEAR,” she explains. “It stands for Hedging, Emphasizing agreement, Acknowledging the other perspective, and Reframing to the positive. You don’t have to change your own convictions. You don’t have to compromise. But you’re showing with every sentence that you’re incorporating the other person’s perspective into your speech.”
Master the follow-up question.
https://vimeo.com/1047936417?fl=pl&fe=sh
When you’re catching up with a family member you haven’t seen in a while, how many questions is too many? It’s way more than you think. In research on sales calls, Harvard Business School prof Alison Wood Brooks (author of TALK), found that the most successful agents were the ones who asked the most questions. In fact, asking too many questions (4 questions a minute!) is still better than asking too few. And the most important question you can ask is a follow-up question: “You're showing a very pure and focused interest in them, which feels really good, and you're listening to what they're saying.”
Get playful.
https://youtu.be/YDKd3J_zTW4
When we think about navigating dinner conversations, we don’t usually think about playing together. But “if we can play together, we can live together,” says Cas Holman. A world-renowned designer and author of the hot new book Playful, Cas argues that in a world dedicated to efficiency and focus, play connects us to each other and to ourselves. And play is much broader than we usually think: “For some adults, rearranging the living room is play. Reading is play. A lot of conversations are playful.” This Thanksgiving, ask yourself how you can incorporate moments of playfulness, by yourself and with others.
Want more from these speakers?
Get in touch with us! We’d love to chat about bringing them to your event.
