Being a vegetarian, Thanksgiving to me always meant the chance to get

together with friends and family rather than focusing on the meal itself. I would fill up on the vegetables, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie and let the rest of the family enjoy the turkey. One year however, I decided that I was going to ‘wow' my relatives with a tofu turkey. Before everyone starts cringing, my mom was still going to cook a real turkey, and I thought this would be a good way to introduce the family to something different. It sounded like a good idea. Tofu isn't really as bad as people think, it takes on the taste of whatever it's mixed with, plus the photo of the turkey in the recipe looked just like the real thing! My idea of cooking is to microwave, so this was a challenge. My first obstacle was to get the ingredients. One ingredient the recipe called for was a cup of sage. I went out to the local supermarket to the spice aisle and purchased sixteen ½ ounce containers of ground sage. Boy this was going to get expensive, those little jars of spice aren't cheap! (Being the microwave queen, I never imaged the recipe meant ‘fresh' sage.) I loaded the cart with blocks of tofu and headed home. This was going to be fun! The big day came and I mixed the ingredients together including the cup of ground sage. The tofu started to turn green, but I persisted. I started to mold my blob of tofu into a turkey shape complete with drumsticks. It really didn't look bad. I put my "turkey" in the oven and waited. As I checked on my turkey something weird was starting to happen. The tofu was actually starting to melt. The drumsticks were no longer visible. I was looking at what appeared to be something off of the sci-fi channel. A green blob. I pulled my turkey out of the oven and started to ‘carve' it. The inside was mush. It was hopeless. Not wanting to admit defeat, I insisted it was a suitable alternative and served it n in a bowl. I guess my family felt bad, because they tried to eat it. As I looked out at the distorted faces at the table, they asked, "how much sage did the recipe call for?" This year I've decided to leave the cooking to others and enjoy the trimmings! Kim Hart