Nov 26, 2003 - Turkey before Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving ... that day once a year when you eat too much turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie.  The dedicated staff of edhat.com went out to see if the pending unavoidable tryptophan* overdose had any effect on food selection in the days leading up to the big event.

Well in order to conduct a scientifically defensible study, the hungry staff of edhat.com went out to lunch (a funny thing for those of you who think we are always out-to-lunch). We searched high and low for the places where the turkey sandwiches lurk. Where they entice their victims to order them with promises of low fat and low cholesterol.  Being people of normal intelligence, the edhat.com staff came up with just the place ... a local sandwich shop.  We picked out two of the busiest, Santa Barbara Sandwich and Cantwell’s. Both are on State Street in Santa Barbara between Mission and Carrillo.

But, the turkey gobble-ins were hard at work long before we arrived. Irony, chance, or just plain luck, both of these places had a Tuesday Turkey Special! But it was too late for us.  The edhat daily contest rules were posted and the lunchtime hour, our pre-determined data collection time, would be wasted if we traveled through the bog of indecision toward another unknown sandwich shop. So we stayed and we counted ... realizing that our data would be skewed toward turkey.

The results, as expected, were a solid showing of turkey ... 42% in all. Pending poultry overload was no match for free chips and a drink!

There was one person in line who asked his lunchmate quite bluntly in a whining Andy Rooney tone, “why are ordering turkey two days before Thanksgiving?  His lunchmate shrugged leaving his order unchanged.

The winner of the contest was an edhat.com enthusiast named Water. Water will be drinking coffee at Peet’s over the holiday weekend.

*tryp·to·phan: An essential amino acid, C₁₁H12N₂O2, formed from proteins during digestion by the action of proteolytic enzymes. It is necessary for normal growth and development and is the precursor of several substances, including serotonin and niacin.