From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Thanksgiving With The Duffys

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

Sean and Rachel sit down to reflect on their Thanksgiving traditions and offer a glimpse into what it’s like to sit at the Duffy’s dinner table during the holidays. Later, they are joined by co-Host of FOX & Friends Weekend Pete Hegseth and  Host of The Will Cain Podcast & co-Host of FOX & Friends Weekend Will Cain, as they talk about their own Thanksgiving traditions.  Follow Sean and Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rachel Campos Duffy. We're going to share with everybody what we plan on serving up this Thanksgiving, what our traditions are, what our kids are going to be doing, but also we're going to be inviting some of our friends to come in and share what they're doing. Kind of a Friendsgiving kind of thing. A Fox Friendsgiving. A Fox Friendsgiving. They're all some of our best friends from Fox, so we're excited. Yeah, so let's talk about our Thanksgiving first. What our traditions are, what we do, how we lay it out, and what our favorite things are for Thanksgiving. So if I'm fair, I do take a little bit of a backseat. I'm a helper. I'm an assistant. I'm a sous chef,

if you will, to Rachel. And she makes a plan and then I help implement. So let's talk about what we do for Thanksgiving dinner. Well, you know, it all starts the night before because if you're not prepped for Thanksgiving, you're going to fall behind the ball in terms of the timing. And Sean really prefers a certain time for Thanksgiving. He wants it to be early enough so we can fully enjoy it. And something always happens with a family our size and it gets pushed back. And so, you know, the more you prep, the more likely you are to stay closer to your time frame. So I actually have a folder.

I've had it for years now. Thanksgiving Day folder. Yeah, I have it in my little folder. And it has all my recipes that I love and my shopping list. So I make sure I have that in advance. And then, you know, I just think the best part is just having everybody home. So this year we have everybody home except my son, Jack, who had to pick between Christmas and Thanksgiving. And so he's going to come home for Christmas, of course.

But basically everyone's going to be here. It's a huge, it's a huge project. And as I think about our Thanksgiving, the food during the dinner is awesome. But I think as I think of the five times of Thanksgiving, it really is the prep time and the craziness around kids being assigned different tasks that match the age that they are and the skills that they have. So one is making mashed potatoes and one is making whatever else you've assigned them. And there's a crazy buzz that happens in our kitchen. And there's a controlled chaos. That fun is really cool.

And, you know, one of the fights that will usually come during Thanksgiving is as there's an excitement about the preparation. But eventually one kid might slide off, the other kid might slide off. And then I got to go get back to the kitchen. The ones that are left are like, hey, where is Lucia? Where is, you know, where is Muddy V? They need to help.

And so again, even the fights around who's helping doing what is, I think- Part of it. Because yeah, it is- Who's doing what? There's always a lot of comparing. Here's one of the traditions that I really love. And I started this with the kids

when they were really little. I would send them out on Thanksgiving day to find a big branch with lots of pieces of, you know, like it has lots of arms, a branch that has a lot of arms. And then we cut with construction paper, little leaves out of construction paper. And on the leaves, I would sit them down with the little leaves that we cut out and they would have to write what they were thankful for. And then we would, with a little hole puncher, cut a little hole in the leaf and with a string, tie the leaves to the branches.

And so that was always in the kitchen with all the things that we were thankful for. I remember several years, my little ultrasound picture, which we would hang from because I'm pregnant all the time and all the holidays. And so we would hang the little ultrasound of the baby that was on the way, which was really fun. But I mean, that's something they really remember. And one of the constant debates that we have is around turkey. And turkey can be dry. Turkey can be difficult.

And so we have done all kinds of turkeys. And so we started off by brining our turkey, you know, for 12, 18 hours and taking out. And we've gone to smoking our turkey, which, by the way, smoking your turkey is fantastic. It turned out really well. We deep fried the turkey, which is even better. So those turkeys have been our best turkeys, the deep fry and the smoke. But last year, what we did is my sister, Bridget, in Wisconsin, was like, I took my turkey in a bag. So you put the turkey in the bag and, you know... So we did it both ways. We had two small turkeys.

Yeah, put some holes in the bag and then you cook it and it holds the moisture in. And so last year, I love that because if you smoke or deep fry your turkey, you can't put stuffing in it. And I like the stuffing from inside the bird with all the drippings. And so we did this one in the bag, in the oven, and the stuffing was so good. But you had a problem. You think that the skin of the turkey is a little too moist. Yeah, I like it when it's not as soft. you know everyone has their favorite what's your favorite thing on because i want to talk about what i think before but what's your favorite the stuffing this the stuffing is my favorite and the stuffing when it's in the bird and i agree with you in the bird that's

it yeah i don't i don't like the stuffing that's not in the bird and then mashed potatoes and gravy with my stuffing so yeah i'm not as big of a mashed potato person. I love cranberry sauce. And I make this cranberry sauce raw with an orange. And it's just tart and delicious. And it has walnuts in it too. And I just absolutely love cranberry sauce. And I love leftovers.

Yeah, leftovers. And my absolute favorite thing about Thanksgiving is the next morning after I'm exhausted and then I have coffee and pie. It is the best. I can't wait for that. We're going to talk to some of our friends coming up about what they love about Thanksgiving. But as I look at what happens, I love that we have our family around us and there's a lot of downtime. You have the day off.

Maybe you have two days off. Maybe if you have two days off, then you come into the weekend. And there's just a lot of time for people to have conversations and tell stories and play games and do all of these things that kind of build these bonds within a family. And when I was growing up, I have five brothers and I have five sisters, a big family. And some of my fondest memories were everyone in the house and the craziness around it and all the conversations. I've been there for that. It is so fun at your house. And I really love that.

And it was really exciting. And I have memories of when Sunday would come and everybody would leave, I would get depressed. I'd be like, this is like something is wrong. You want everyone to come back. Yeah, I really. This is like something that's lost. You want everyone to come back. Yeah, I really... That's my feeling after Christmas when I have to take down, you know, in January, after

January 6th, I start to take down the Christmas decorations. I always get kind of melancholic because I just love Christmas so much. And, you know, that feeling, I know what you mean when the holiday's over and it's kind of like back to normal. What are you thankful for this year the most? You know, I go to simple things, Rachel. I'm grateful that I have food on our table. Yeah. I'm grateful that we have a roof over our head and we have heat in our house.

But I look, there's a lot of people, there's a lot of stories out there of people who have lost or are losing their health, people who are sick, people who have died. or are losing their health. People who are sick, people who have died. And I'm grateful for the health of my family, but that I have most of my, all my family with me. And I'm really grateful for that, the time that I have with all of them and we're not going through a crisis.

And I can't imagine people that go through a health crisis during the holiday season, how hard that is. It is. Very simple. It can bring people together too. Sometimes losing loved ones, losing, knowing someone's having a health difficulty can also remind us of how vulnerable we all are

and how precious and fragile our existence is in so many ways. I'm also thankful for the simple things. And I think so much, there's a lot of violence and war around the world. And it's sad. I want to pray for it, but I'm really grateful it's not here and that we're not directly dealing with it. We're not directly dealing with it. And I just think that we're just so often unaware of just how much we have. A big part of Thanksgiving is not just our family, not just our faith, not just food, but it's also our friends and what our friends mean to us because it's part of... I'm thankful for my friends.

The relationships that we build in our life that are so important. Yeah. You know, I feel really lucky. I know you feel the same way about Dagan as I feel about those guys that, I mean, I'm lucky to work at Fox. I'm lucky to have such wonderful colleagues that I call friends.

And so I'm just excited that we're going to have some of them drop down. We're going to have Will, Pete, we're going to stop by, have them stop in. Tell us their traditions, what they're thankful for. We'll have more of this conversation after this. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back.

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The great Pete Hexeth. Pete, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. Hey, Sean. Pete has some friends with him. Rachel. I do. I have some friends. He has more kids with him. Family with me, yes.

Well, you guys are family at this point. It's awesome to be with both of you. But yes, I'm joined by three of my sons. We've got Gunner, Boone, and Rex here with me. Guys, say hi. Hi. Hi. Hey, guys. So I'm going to give everybody. Gunner's 13. Boone, and Rex here with me. Guys, say hi. Hi. Hi. Hey, guys.

So I'm going to give everybody, Gunner's 13, Boone's 11, Rex is 8. We're going to talk about Thanksgiving at the Hegseth household. So I'm going to start with you, Pete, because I know how much you love Thanksgiving. Tell me why you love Thanksgiving and what's going on at the Hegseth house this year. Seth House this year? I mean, I love Thanksgiving because it's all about family and gratitude and football and wide open spaces of time and bountiful food. And it's the quintessential, it's an American holiday. It's something that, you know, it goes all the way back to our history. And just, it's such a pause for me. It's, it's the opposite of the chaos of Christmas, which I love. I love Christmas for, for the religious reasons of it and the significance of it, but there's no gifts. There's none of that.

There's just family time together, no pressure. So I love Thanksgiving. So let's talk, let me talk to the kids. So to Gunnar, Boone and Rak, what are your favorite things about, about Thanksgiving, about the family coming together? What do you guys love about it? I like just the overall environment, that it's really nice and everybody's together and we have great food and we just are all together and are happy. And I think my favorite part is the turkey bowl.

It's a football game we play, and it's always fun to watch that. And also, there's always a football game on Thanksgiving, and that's really fun to watch. So do you guys actually play football yourself, like a Hegseth family football session? Yeah, we do. You do? That's so Kennedy-esque. I love it. Yeah, so we get out there and we pick teams,

and then basically it'll probably be you'll each get like seven drives, and whoever scores the most on seven drives wins. But if it's a tie, then we'll probably go into overtime and one drive each team so it's really fun and the winner the mvp gets a chain but so this is what's so great about having a big family is you can actually have a football game together that's right oh yeah we do i mean i'll tell you this we even get j Jen in there. She plays. My nickname is I'm Dad Marino. It's all very competitive. Awesome. You know, we set it. It's the most official game played at the Hague South household all year. We've got yard markers and cones and jerseys and cheerleaders. And it's just fun. You know, we usually do it before we eat.

Before you eat? Before or after dinner? Usually. Before dinner. It's an afternoon game that then everyone gets showered up and dressed for a proper, like, late lunch, early dinner thing. I love that. So what are the games you guys play? So it's like after dinner, do you guys, are there board games you play?

Anything else you guys do together as a family, just kind of sit around and talk? Do you watch, like, start watching Christmas movies at that point? Are you watching football? What are you guys do together as a family just kind of sit around and talk you watch do you watch like a start watching christmas movies at that point are you watching football what are you guys doing after dinner i've got three kids nodding their heads at me being like dad be honest and uh dad being well yeah dad sleeps it's kind of every i don't want to say it's every man for themselves but the the kids just enjoy outdoor time you know go do what you want to do uh and it's will end up devolving into me taking a nap like anything else. I love that. So I want to go through.

I want to ask you each, what is your favorite Thanksgiving food? So maybe we start with Gunner. I would probably say, like, a pie at the end with some ice cream. Me too. Gunner, that's exactly me.'s me it was really easy one the pie is easy i love the pie okay where's boone out with i'm your favorite food uh it's got to be fried turkey fried turkeys fried the turkey last year we just started it and it was a hit. How did that turn out? So that turned out good?

It was nice and moist? Yeah, it was nice and moist. It was way better when they usually make it. It's really hard to get a perfect, like, good turkey because usually it's dry. It's always dry, you're right. So I'm going to tell you what. We were talking earlier on the podcast, and the best turkey you can get is one that's deep fried. Yes.

I totally agree with that. All right, Rex, what's your favorite food for Thanksgiving? Well, I like the pie and the turkey. So I was going to say pie, but then Connor said pie. And then I was going to say turkey, but then Boone said turkey. So I don't really know. I like pie a little bit more than turkey but yeah Rex are we talking pumpkin pie yeah is there a different kind of pie no I mean I've only had pumpkin pie that's the

only thing I've had you've never had apple pie no I've only had pumpkin pie oh you got pumpkin pie right there we'll try try apple pie this this thing. You might have to. I'm a stuffing guy. That's my big one. I love, love, love stuffing with a bunch of gravy on it. Sean, to your point about the turkey, though, the downside of the frying, and I love the frying, it's amazing, is the process of

looking at the turkey in the oven with the oven light on. There's the ambiance of the hours that you stare at it wondering if it's going to come out okay. You totally lose that. But again, you're right. The best turkey is the one that's in the deep fryer. And the second best is the one that's smoked. But all right, boys.

So as we talk about Thanksgiving, we should be thankful for something, right? What are you guys thankful for on Thanksgiving? It can be anything. Rex, you start. We'll start with Rex. I prepped him for this a little bit, so they better have a good answer. I said, guys, they might ask you what you're thankful for, because that's the whole point of Thanksgiving. So, Rex?

Well, I like that we can have family time with it, and I like Thanksgiving a lot. Love it. Good answer, Rex. Boone, what are you thankful for? Thankful for. I'm thankful for probably sports and my family and God because sports is just something we get to do, but family is just people who support you

and will always be there for the rest of your life. And then God is just, he made you and he's just people who support you and will always be there for the rest of your life. And then God is just, he made you, and he's just amazing. So, yeah, that's what I'm thinking. He's raising these kids right. All right, Connor, how about you? I would say probably I'm thankful for our country. I'm thankful that we have people who are willing to defend us, and that's why we're here today. That's what I'm thankful that we have people who are willing to defend us, and that's why we're here today.

That's what I'm thankful for. Well, it has been an absolute joy having you guys. And before we go, I just want to tell you what I'm thankful for. We've been talking about how we're so thankful for our family and God and our country, just as your boys so aptly pointed out. But we're also grateful for our friends, and we really count you and Jen and your whole beautiful, huge, amazing, crazy family in that. You are some of the friends that we are most grateful for. And just want to wish you a happy Thanksgiving and tell you that we feel blessed to know. We feel the exact same way. We're so grateful to God that you have been brought into our lives, that I get to work with you, that we get to work with Sean, that we get to spend time

together, raise kids together. That's what it's all about. And Pete, thank you for joining us as well. And the boys, I just want to make one last point. I always talk about if you want to save America, you have to save your family. And if you listen to the Hegseth boys talk about what they're grateful for, it's about raising good kids that understand history and faith and family. Gunnar, Boone, Rex, thank you guys for joining us. Thanks for being here. Thanks for being such great young Americans. And Pete, thanks for raising such good kids. And I want to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll have more of this conversation after this.

Welcome back to From the Kitchen Table Thanksgiving special with Sean and Rachel. Let's bring in our friend Will Cain. Will, welcome to Friendsgiving here at the Kitchen Table. Thank you. Happy Friendsgiving.

Yeah, well, you know, you love Thanksgiving. We've talked about this a lot on the show. You like it more than Christmas, which I find odd. But why don't you tell us exactly, tell Sean,

tell everybody, why you prefer Thanksgiving to Christmas, which seems really sacrilegious. Yeah, see, I knew you were going to do that. That's what you're doing. You're already claiming the Jesus high ground on me, but I'm judging this and I'm ranking my holidays based upon their secular offerings, if you will. And I'm not alone. Hegseth agrees with me. It'd be a real debate between the 4th of July and Thanksgiving for number one on the annual holiday power rankings. And the answer and the reason why is they both involve family, friends, being together,

having a good time with no pressure for gift giving. It's great. Let's have a beer or two. Let's eat really well. Let's watch football. Let's hang out. Perfect day. Talk to us about the cane tradition. What do you guys do? Like what embodies your tradition on Thanksgiving that makes it so great for you guys? So Thanksgiving is my family's holiday. So when Kathleen and I first got married, she got Christmas because to this conversation, Christmas was always, I mean, it was a big deal for my family, but Thanksgiving wasn't for her family. And I will say that I think Christmas for her family was bigger. Like they had traditions they did every year, but my family had already begun to develop Thanksgiving traditions. And so I got it every year. And so what we would, we do is every other year, I have a big family like you

guys, I'm one of four. And then my dad died when I was 25. My mom got married three years later to a guy who has three daughters. So, and then they're great. And I love them all. So I guess basically we're a family of seven now. And that's just before you get to the grandkids, right? But then on the off year, so every other year, we also include my best friend from growing up in life's a family as well. And he's one of five. And our families were very intertwined, very close.

And that's this year, by the way, where the two families are intertwined. And so I don't know, 50, there could be 50 people at my mom's house on Thanksgiving day. Awesome. And we eat early. We probably eat about noon or one on Thanksgiving. We get up early. Everybody starts. Honestly, guys, you know, I actually love that. There's something about like

starting your day with buddies and friends and family. So you get up, maybe somebody's putting some ribs on the smoker or something like that because turkey, and let's be honest, is overrated. So by the time it's 10, 11 a.m., you're already hanging out. You're already having a good time. You eat by 12 or 1. You watch the cowboy game when it comes on, for sure. And then there's the leftover cycle. Everybody stays all day.

Everybody sits around the kitchen, continues to have drinks and talk. And then we usually play games. We play like, I mean, it sounds so goofy, but the kids love it so much now they demand it. We play parlor games like there's a game called Families that we play and there's a game called Mafia that we do. We love and we play that almost every Thanksgiving. What's Families? Families is a game where you write down um it's like they'll say there's a category cars and you put down yours and then the game is to guess who said that yes we were working on this game too and our kids absolutely love it and demand it as well you know you mentioned something about if

you're celebrating with a lot of people and you actually can intertwine another family where there's, you know, people the same age, you know, each other. And I always thought of through the, the Wednesday night, come on from college and everyone's home and everyone goes and you get a

reconnect and you're right. You stay out late and you get up the next morning at my mom's. I was cooking Thanksgiving dinner at that point. And there's a lot of people around. It really is an enjoyable time. And you guys do something great. If you if you can eat at noon or one o'clock, that is masterful because we've target like target like two o'clock and usually which means like three or four, five o'clock.

And then it gets to be late. You're right. You're right about that. OK, so I have a lot of things to say about this. So first of all, I love Will Keane complaining about getting gifts for three people. Well, can I wait, wait, wait, wait, there's something I've response to that. And I think you're going to agree with me when you have nine people, everything you've told me this becomes less precious, right? right every game every parent teacher conference whatever it may be because you got nine of them and you can't you can't like

obsess over each one of them so i think that you know you probably don't worry as much about like getting just the right gift and by the way i want to tell you something that's a cop out for me because i do that and then don't and then I scramble and get something not very good at the end. But the question I'm impressed by, Will, is do you actually shop? Does Kathleen do this or are you both doing it? Do you have responsibility? No, only for her. Oh, wow.

OK, so OK, so so he has one gift to give. And that's why he's chosen turkey over Jesus. I'm so confused i like christmas you know they're very like i we lived in new york for all those years of raising the boys until the last couple of years and we didn't have one church we did a church for three or four years and we switched to another church for three or four years and we did it on christmas eve we got for christmas eve dinner and we didn't have one restaurant and we lived in New York. So it's like cooking in an apartment wasn't as fun, to be honest. And we'd switch restaurants around. So we had our traditions, but they just weren't as fixed as Thanksgiving.

So, so, so we'll quickly, when you were in New York, did you fly home for Thanksgiving? Now you're, now you're in Texas. How far away do you live from your mom? And so do you guys go over Thanksgiving morning? Do you go the night before and stay at your mom's house with your whole family? How does that work out? What you're doing in New York versus what you're doing right now? Yeah, we'd fly in exactly every year. Yeah. And by the way, they say New York is wonderful for Thanksgiving. I've never done it. Like the whole parade and everything. I've never been there for that. So I'd rather be in Texas. We did it once. It was overrated. Now that you're in Texas, do you go to your mom's house? Do you stay at your mom's house?

Do you drive over? Yes. That's where we all go to my mom's house an hour north of Dallas. And most of my siblings live somewhere in or around Dallas now. And so it's pretty easily accessible, but we all stay there. We, we, uh, you, and I think that's part of the fun, the shared uncomfortableness of the sleeping arrangements. And I love you bringing up Wednesday night, Sean, like that's important. Like Wednesday night, we're going to go out and you're totally right. When we were kids in college coming home and we still do it, but now it's like the whole

family at a, we usually pick a bar slash restaurant, you know, cause they're going to get, again, there'll be like 30 to 50 of us. Cause it'll be the whole crew that will be together on Thanksgiving. We'll be together on Wednesday night. And then, yeah, that's it. That's what we do. We stay together at my mom's house. Do you cook for what would you have like a dish you're assigned? I mean, that's a lot of people people your mom's obviously not doing it all herself no we have a kathleen is actually the organizer of uh like a sign-up sheet uh everyone has to sign up for something but it could be beer like you can sign up for whatever we have a long list of needs it sounds like it's going to be a blast at the cane uh family reunion i can i can understand why it feels different than Christmas

and why it's like got a fun and sort of a lot of history behind it. I just want you to know we think a lot about our family at Thanksgiving, Will, and we're grateful, but we're also grateful for our friends, not just our family.

And we include you and Kathleen and the boys. We love you. We hope you have a great time with your beautiful family. And it truly is a our family. And we include you and Kathleen and the boys. We love you. We hope you have a great time with your beautiful family. And it truly is a beautiful family. And we wish you a happy Thanksgiving. Thanks for joining us. Happy Thanksgiving.

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