Living in Silicon Valley offers many Thanksgiving options for eating out or picking up entire meals to serve at home. Just make sure to have plenty of good local wine on hand: Testarossa’s 2021 Rancho La Viña Pinot Noir (Santa Rita Hills) and 2021 Sierra Mar Chardonnay (Santa Lucia Highlands) are ideal. Other Santa Cruz Mountains standouts are 2022 Gali Pinot Noir Cuvée, 2021 Cinnabar SCM Pinot Noir and the 2019 Kings Mountain Clone 13 Pinot Noir. With dark meat turkey, vegetarian options like eggplant and mushrooms, or maple glazed ham, the 2020 Perrucci Family Syrah would be killer.
Los Gatans can make it a spicy New Orleans-inspired Thanksgiving with The Bywater’s dinner package that includes house-smoked turkey, braised greens, andouille sausage and oyster stuffing, honey pecan yams, Bywater macaroni salad, cranberry sauce with winter spices and turkey gravy. They’ve made it easy to add on a Manresa Bread pie or pumpkin tart, too.
Preorder at https://www.exploretock.com/thebywater by Nov. 19, and pick up on Wednesday, Nov. 22.
Grocer + Goddess offers a pre-brined turkey that you roast yourself, along with all the prepared trimmings, including mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole with fried leeks, whole berry cranberry sauce, maple brown sugar yams, bread rolls with whipped butter and a pumpkin pie. The meal goes for $600, plus tax and tip, and is meant to serve eight. Order by Nov. 17 and pick up on Nov. 22 or 23. Side dishes like corn pudding and desserts like pumpkin cheesecake and cranberry pie also available for preorder at https://grocerandgoddess.com/holiday-menu%3Athanksgiving
Looking for indulgent cookies and snacks that can stand up to shipping? Manresa Bread’s sable collection includes vanilla, salted butter, chocolate and coffee, and the snack tin contains pastry chef Stephanie Prida’s caramel corn, cheddar sables, zaletti, caramels and cocktail nuts with subtle meaty spice that will compliment a strong Negroni or an old-fashioned with orange bitters. New this year is the cinnamon roll baking kit ($149) with everything needed to make six pillowy-soft Christmas morning cinnamon rolls. Owner and founder Avery Ruzicka’s technique of scalding the flour and milk mixture in advance is the secret sauce. She also has a baguette baking kit for $159.
Order your Thanksgiving pies (Dutch apple and rye pecan), pumpkin tarts, butter rolls, babkas and panettones at https://www.manresabread.com/preorder-1. Pick them up on Nov. 21 or 22. Orders can also be shipped nationwide.
A Thanksgiving Day Buffet is planned for Nov. 23, 4-8 p.m., at Aroma in Ben Lomond, helmed by Chef Mario Ibarra, formerly of Ristorante De Mario in Saratoga. The buffet, priced at $30 and exclusive of drinks, dessert tax and tip, will include whole stuffed turkey with mushrooms and cream sauce, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, two vegetarian dishes, garlic broccoli, pork ribs and mixed garden salad. Reservations are highly recommended to 831-609-6596.
Some Los Gatos and Saratoga restaurants will be closed on Thanksgiving, including the Wine Cellar, Steamers, Parkside, Teleferic Barcelona, Flowers and Hero Ranch Kitchen.
