The holiday season, from Thanksgiving through New Year's Day, is also the most wasteful season, as American household waste increases by more than 25 percent. All that added food waste, shopping bags, packaging, wrapping paper, bows, ribbons and more adds up to an additional one million tons a week to the landfills in the United States.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, dear readers.

In the spirit of the day, I'll be pausing to spend time with family and give thanks for the many blessings in my life.

Plenty of time for deals tomorrow......

If you've waited this long to buy the ingredients for your Thanksgiving feast, you're likely to need all the help you can get.

So I walked the aisles of several Triangle stores today to find you the best prices on a few Thanksgiving staples: Turkey, sweet potatoes, cranberries (canned and fresh), and canned pumpkin.

Here's where I found the absolute rock-bottom prices on each:

Thanksgiving. It's about giving thanks, eating turkey, kicking back with football, planning your Black Friday shopping strategy, and of course, watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Airing on NBC and CBS at 9am (except CBS drops the "Macy's" tag), the parade begins at Central Park West in New York City and ends with an appearance by Santa Claus at Herald Square.

The parade will feature performances by Jimmy Fallon, Kanye West, Keri Hilson, Kylie Minogue, Jessica Simpson, India Arie, Big Time Rush, The Muppets, Carrie Underwood, and Gladys Knight,  as well as performances from Broadway shows like "American Idiot" and various marching bands.

And don't forget the balloons!

Here are some photos from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade rehearsal.

Every year Andrea and I gather the dinnerware and cookware for our holiday shoots.  It can be downright stressful to rush around to the stores to find the right combination of colors in dinnerware and napkins and to search out just the right turkey platter. 

This year we borrowed items from A Southern Season in Chapel Hill and Bed, Bath & Beyond.  I thought I would share a little bit about the pieces here in case anyone might be searching out their own new combination this season.

The Spode Woodland 10-inch plate, $33.50, and spaniel 8-inch plate, $23.50, are available at A Southern Season in Chapel Hill, as well as the matching oval platter, $175.

We also used a Juliska pewter stoneware 10-inch serving bowl, $65, and Juliska berry and thread small serving bowl, $56, both available from A Southern Season.

We used a 10-inch tapered natural square plate from Pacific Merchants Acaciaware which is carried by Bed, Bath & Beyond online, www.bedbathandbeyond.com.

To see the complete photo gallery from our Thanksgiving shoot, go HERE.

In today's paper, I offer a streamlined Thanksgiving menu: dry-brined turkey, make-ahead mashed potato casserole, cornbread pecan dressing, slow cooker green bean casserole and sliced sweet potato pie.

(My counterpart Kathleen Purvis at the Charlotte Observer will be offering last-minute recipes next week for Charleston shrimp dip, spicy cranberry chutney, giblet gravy and easy cranberry apple cake; so stay tuned.)

I also have a column about Butterball's Turkey Talk-Line.

Greg Cox's Epicurean column is about three new restaurants: Russell's Steakhouse in Hillsborough, New Moon Cafe in Wake Forest and Fitzgerald's Seafood in Rolesville.

Today's Specialty of the House recipe is Panzanella's mushroom soup. Specialty of the House gets recipes for local restaurant dishes. Send requests, including your city, to Specialty of the House, c/o The News & Observer or e-mail ggcox@bellsouth.net

Susan Havala Hobbs' healthy eating column, On the Table, is about the Twinkie diet.

Kathleen Purvis answers a question about what the sell by, use by and best by dates mean on our foods. Purvis answers questions from readers each week. Send cooking questions to kpurvis@newsobserver.com

Greg's Hot List: More Thanksgiving options

Last week, I shared a list of restaurants that will be serving Thanksgiving Day dinner. This week, as promised, I've got more options. Better hurry, though. Those reservations are filling up fast. (Here is LINK to earlier list.)

Acme Food & Beverage Co.
110 E. Main St., Carrboro
929-2263
www.acmecarrboro.com
Butternut Squash
133-E W. Franklin St., Chapel Hill
929-8199
www.butternutsquashrestaurant.com
The Capital Room
1520 Blue Ridge Road, in the Ramada Inn, Raleigh
832-4100
http://blueridge.pmcproperties.com

Click READ MORE to see complete list.

Check out our photo gallery for a sneak peek of Andrea's Thanksgiving spread running tomorrow.

UPDATE (by A. Weigl): The dinnerware in these photos is courtesy of A Southern Season in Chapel Hill and www.bedbathandbeyond.com. The oval platter for the turkey, the dessert platesand dinner plates are Spode Woodland. The stuffing is in a Juliska Berry and Thread bowl. All those are available at A Southern Season. The green bean casserole is served on a Pacific Merchants Acaciaware square plate available at online at Bed Bath and Beyond.

Tickets are still available for the Triangle Vegetarian Society's annual Thanksgiving for the evening seating at Spice Street in Chapel Hill.

The daytime seating at Durham's Parizade is already fully booked. (I went last year and I have to say the food was delicious.) Go HERE to buy tickets and more information.

Greg Cox's Hot List: Gobble gobble!

You're not up for cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year? No problem. Just get reservations at any of these restaurants, which will be happy to do the cooking for you. I'll have more options next week.

Angus Barn
9401 Glenwood Ave., Raleigh
787-3505
http://angusbarn.com

Elaine's on Franklin
454 W. Franklin St., Chapel Hill
960-2770
www.elainesonfranklin.com

Fairview
3001 Cameron Blvd., in the
Washington Duke Inn, Durham
490-0999
www.washingtondukeinn.com/Dining/dining.asp

Click READ MORE for the complete list.