A Toast to Relish - Food writer Emily Teel celebrates her family's relish tray tradition and adds a tiny tipple inspired by the briny appetizer.

Some families put out a full spread of appetizers on Thanksgiving, pregaming the feast of the year with snacks, but my family has always taken a simpler approach. The meal is the main event; why should the opening act steal the spotlight? There's a delicate balance to it, however, because a slow start to the feasting can leave people hangry by dinnertime.

- By Emily Teel - Photos by Kelsey Hansen - Food styling by Kelsey Moylan

Some families put out a full spread of appetizers on Thanksgiving, pregaming the feast of the year with snacks, but my family has always taken a simpler approach. The meal is the main event; why should the opening act steal the spotlight? There's a delicate balance to it, however, because a slow start to the feasting can leave people hangry by dinnertime.

Enter the relish tray. Each Thanksgiving, my mother pulls a crystal dish with silver details down from the cabinet. I'm sure it's the only day of the year she uses it. She fills each molded section with something. It always contains olives, both the deliciously salty canned black ones that I crammed onto the ends of my fingers as a kid, and the pimiento-stuffed green ones associated with sandwich picks and martinis. There are always a few types of jarred cucumber pickles baby dills, cornichons, bread and butter and snappy spikes of raw celery.