Photo: Vivien Killilea/Getty Images
Kelly Ripahas chosen her side on one ofThanksgiving’sbiggest battles.
Every year, the debate rages on at homes across America as to when exactly is the perfect time to eatThanksgiving dinner.
Some households begin serving food in the early afternoon, typically between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Others wait until traditional dinner time, around 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. or even 7 p.m., while some who experience longer-than-usual cooking times might not eat until 8 p.m. or 9 p.m.
The Atlanticdrew down the line back in 2018, declaring “the correct time” to eat Thanksgiving dinner. Factoring in things like tradition and etiquette, plus cook and rest time for the turkey, as well as the Thanksgiving Day arc — anticipating one’s meal, eating, digesting, napping, and then returning for late-night snacks — they determined 4 p.m. balanced all of ones' Thanksgiving needs.
Well on Friday, Ripa made her stance clear.
OnLive with Kelly and Ryan, the Emmy-winning talk show host and mother of three, 51, told co-host Ryan Seacrest thatThe Atlantic— and anyone who ate as early as 4 p.m. — was “all wrong.”
“Thanksgiving dinner isdinnerwhich means it should happen at dinner time,” Ripa said. “Dinner should be late!”
“I do not understand everyone’s obsession with having Thanksgiving dinner at 2 p.m.,” she continued. “Then you’re hungry at 6 p.m and 7 p.m. and 8 p.m, and then you’re eating, and then you’re binging, and then you’re having leftovers, and then God forbid you don’t make a turkey soup the next day, and then you have to make your turkey omelet the [next] morning…”
Ripa had an ally in guest Kevin Hart, who fully agreed with her.
“We’re Black so we go late. We’re not an early eat family,” the comedian said. “It’s very weird because this is the only time where I see race play a factor, because I do have friends of other ethnicities and dinner’s at like, 2 p.m. or 3 p.m. And I’m like, ‘Who does that?’ I don’t understand, who eats that early?”
When Seacrest said he ate Thanksgiving dinner at 2:30 p.m., Hart got animated — so much so that Seacrest joked Hart looked like he was “ready to launch across the set.”
“You eat at 2:30 p.m.? Are you kidding? Dinner is at like 8. We eat at 8 p.m.! And before that, you drink!” Hart said. “I really got upset right now! I will literally fight you! Oh my God, I would be so upset [if I had to eat that early].”
His enthusiasm left Ripa in good spirits.
“Thank you, I am validated today because these monsters all are like, ‘2 p.m!’ " Ripa said. “When I send out the email, ‘Cocktails at 6 p.m.’ people are like, ‘6 p.m.? We’re going to have to eat early!’ "
“5 p.m. or 6 p.m. is respectable,” Hart said.
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Thanksgiving is a “big holiday” in the Hart household, he also told Ripa and Seacrest on Friday’sLive with Kelly and Ryan.
“At the Hart household, Thanksgiving is unreal,” the father of four said. “It’s festive, it’s conversation, it’s banter, it’s music, it’s dancing — it’s big. It’s actually one of my favorite holidays. I don’t cook, though.”
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“We are Thanksgiving compatible,” Ripa laughed.
Now that the dinner time was settled, another Thanksgiving debate was brought up on the show: to buffet or serve food “all around.”
In that conflict, Ripa said she typically chooses to do a buffet — though last year, that got her in trouble when her dog Chewie had a field day on the table while Ripa and her guests gushed over Anderson Cooper and Benjamin Maisani’s son Wyatt.
The ham, Ripa said, was fromThe Art of Eatingcookbook and was “a thing of beauty,” Ripa joked.
“I didn’t make it,' she said. “It’s like the stuff they make when they show the ham in the movie. It looks like that. It has the scoring and the fruits, it was gorgeous.”
Chewie saw her opportunity and seized it, theAll My Childrenalum teased.
“She was like, ‘I know this is a rare moment. I’m going to take complete advantage of it.’ “Ripa said of her pooch. “She was like, ‘You dummies.’ And she’s so old, it didn’t even occur to me, ‘I should put this higher, she’ll never be able to get up here.’ She’s bionic, this dog, if you put a ham or a turkey or anything Thanksgiving in front of her. She’s like a phoenix from the ashes, flying onto the table.”
Live with Kelly and Ryanairs weekdays in syndication (check local listings).
source: people.com
