On Wawa's Turkey Bowl

       Every year, in the fall, the gas-station-turned-supermarket known as Wawa starts selling their famous turkey bowls.  For those of you who aren’t familiar, it’s a bowl (obviously) filled with mashed potatoes, stuffing, turkey, and then drowned in gravy.
       In short, it is a condensed quick-service version of all the highlights of Thanksgiving, except without the traffic, death threats, incest jokes, stress, loud children, parents yelling at the loud children, chaos, burnt rolls, and inevitable “the house is boiling hot, why is all the food cold?” musings.  Or perhaps that’s just my family.
       It does, however, come with all the guilty carbohydrate-and-tryptophan-laden deliciousness of the traditional* meal.  Except if the meal were served hot and at your leisure, in a quiet place free of jostling, where nobody is fighting for table space so they’re not demoted to eating out of their lap on the couch, watching their drink like a hawk so none of the people present (which clearly exceeds maximum capacity as decreed by the fire department) knock it while trying to squeeze past.  Or perhaps that’s just my family.
       In other words, it’s the core essence of the season, highlighting the best points of a hearty fall meal.  And considering how much you get, it’s quite cheap.  Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t Gordon Ramsay’s cooking - after all, it is a gas station at the root of its business - but it’s still quite good.  Grab some iced tea from the cooler and you’re all set for Thanksgiving in October.  
       Without someone banging tunelessly on the piano while everyone pretends not to hear the racket.  Or perhaps that’s just my family.
       This post is taking far longer than normal to write, but that’s primarily because I’m trying to muffle my own indecent noises of foodgasmic joy and only typing between greedily-shoveled-in bites.. which is a task difficult to do when you’re sharing elbow room with two other people on a couch who are both complaining that you need to eat more (but should lose some weight).  Or perhaps... that’s just my family.
       To quote a coworker who just sent me an instant message, “ok this thing is the truth.”  
       So you’ll have to excuse me if I ignore the smirks of those not in-the-know regarding the beauty that is the Turkey Bowl at Wawa.  Yes, I get my Thanksgiving rocks off at a gas station in early October.  Yes, I will do so multiple times between now and “Turkeh Day.”  Yes, the bowl contains an absurd amount of carbs (so does your stuffing and mashed potatoes at a traditional* Thanksgiving dinner).  And yes, I will finish it in one sitting.
       Easily.
       After all, you’re supposed to indulge on Thanksgiving, right?  That special time of the year when everybody is allowed to gorge with wanton abandon and no concern for calorie content - unless you’re with my family.
       So while Thanksgiving slowly ticks closer, with my family’s perfectly traditional* dishes of pancit, braised endive, taco dip, and tomato-mozzarella salad, I do believe I’ll start adjusting my driving routes to roll past that Wawa by my house.  After all, what better way to kick off a lazy Sunday nap than a carb-laden food coma?