Banter Bites

What’s Your Thanksgiving Favorite?

Is it even possible to have a single Thanksgiving favorite? Some have many – some have none!

BANTER BITE BACKSTORY: Red always looks forward to Thanksgiving, not just because she loves having everyone around her dining room table, but because she enjoys so much of the food; while Black tolerates the food and tries to forget that she's not a fan of "forced celebrations", especially this year's double hit as Thanksgiving falls on her birthday.

Of course, Red does all the cooking, not just because she enjoys it but because that way, she's guaranteed to get her favorites – cranberry sauce and cornbread stuffing. She enjoys the food so much that a few times a year she'll make a turkey dinner, but with much fewer side dishes.

Black, on the other hand, doesn't have any Thanksgiving favorites, unless you count a baked yam, which is nothing special as she makes them in the microwave year-round. But she does miss the years they used to go to the Omni Hotel for its amazing Thanksgiving buffet, and she could avoid all the traditional foods,

Some people love to make turkey and all the fixings. I prefer to make dinner reservations.

This is one of Red’s favorite Banter Bites in large part because of Black’s “corny” puns, but also because fresh corn is a summer staple – whether cooked on the grill or in the microwave, whether eaten on its own or as a primary ingredient in refreshing summer salads


This may be one of the corniest things you’ll ever read.

BANTER BITE BACKSTORY: It’s just a vegetable, so how can it possibly elicit such a strong reaction from Red, while, for Black, it’s more a source of amusement and even, it turns out, admiration?

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Think you can avoid artificial intelligence? Think again …

BANTER BITE BACKSTORY: Red already fights technology at every turn, preferring to keep her ostrich head in the sand, plus, she finds Artificial Intelligence (AI) scary; whereas Black knows ignoring reality merely postpones the inevitable, so she’s started playing with AI to understand it better …

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A man better known for his death than his life, although Red, the straight-A student and history lover, immediately thinks of the costly and controversial movie of his life. (Well, technically, it was the life of Cleopatra.) Black, of course, focuses on business – leadership lessons, including the power of words, although she surprises Red with some food trivia. But the fact July’s named after him is the perfect excuse to rerun one of Red’s favorite Banter Bites …

Quick! If someone says "Julius Caesar," what comes to mind?

BANTER BITE BACKSTORY: Almost everyone has heard of Julius Caesar, but how many of us really know much about him, or at least that's what Red starts to wonder when she receives the usual flippant, but still accurate, reply from her sister, after feeling very proud that she knew that July was named after the famous Roman.

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