Thanksgiving
This year, we hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house in Seattle. This was the first time I was in charge of cooking Thanksgiving dinner, which was mostly very exciting and a little bit daunting.
For the most part, everything turned out well. We had a little pre-meal coordination to make sure that we had a good selection of food for everyone. Google Docs rock! I was responsible for the main courses – turkey, stuffing, gravy, and rolls. Concerned about timing everything, I created a minute-by-minute playbook for the afternoon, which was not effective. “Roadmap” would have been a lot better than “Detailed Script”.
Some additional lessons learned:
- Timing the turkey so the breast meat is done at the same time as the thighs is tricky. I brined the turkey to help create a buffer, but nevertheless the breast was done well before the thighs, and although no one complained, I thought the turkey was a little dry as a result.
- The last minute of taking the turkey out, arranging sides, carving the turkey, and finishing the gravy is very hectic. Clear plenty of counter space and try to keep the kitchen free.
- Don’t improvise a recipe you haven’t successfully made before. I tried making Parker House Rolls and I decided to freeze them before baking them (after I prepared them in the morning) so that we could have them fresh for dinner. Well, that didn’t work. They were more like Parker House cookies. Amusingly, our vegan guests tried the identical Cook Illustrated recipe, but substituted soy butter and soy milk, and ended up with a very similar situation. So, it’s not yet clear the recipe is good…but given CI’s track record, I am more inclined to fault my improvisation and the vegan substitutions.
We had a great group of people over for dinner, including my cousin Becky, her husband Jay, and their toddler Abby. Having them over provided a nice “Valerio family connection”. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always celebrated Thanksgiving with my mom’s side of the family, originally at my aunt and uncle’s house in Poughkeepsie, NY and more recently at my parents’ house outside of Philadelphia. Trying to recount the many memories of those gatherings would take quite a while, but I was happy that we were able to start our own family tradition in Seattle.
On Sunday, the Lanfords came back over for some Sunday morning pancakes before heading back to Portland.
Some pictures from the weekend are below. Unfortunately, it proved a little difficult cooking and taking pictures around dinner time, so apologies for the lack of people shots…
