A Week Before Thanksgiving Make Your To Do List

For my mother, Thanksgiving was the best holiday of the year because her friends and family gathered to enjoy a meal together.

But hosting the meal can seem daunting. So many details to take care of, so much food to get on the table and so much to clean up. 

How do restaurants and caterers deal with the stress of putting on big events?

They plan out every detail so there are no surprises.

The Guest List

How many people are coming? That will tell you how much food you'll need and how big the dining room table has to be.

These days, many people have dietary restrictions, so it's good to know that as well. Along with the invitation, ask if there are certain foods your guests need to avoid.

If you expect a lot of children, decide where you want them to play and organize that space as carefully as the dining room.

Recipes

Write up the menu. Go over everything, as my grandmother used to say, from soup to nuts.

If friends and family want to contribute to the meal, work out who will bring what. Give people assignments so you don't end up with three platters of green beans and no pumpkin pie.

Organize your recipes and do the math. Most recipes are written for four adults. Given the number of your guests, make the appropriate multiplication. 

Go through the ingredient lists for all the dishes and write up a master ingredients list. For example, if the stuffing recipe calls for 1 cup of mushrooms and the gravy recipe needs 1/2 cup of mushrooms, you know you need a total of 1 1/2 cups of mushrooms for the meal. Put that on your ingredients list.

Once you have a master list, divide up which ingredients you want to buy at farmers markets, specialty stores (like bakeries and cheese shops) and the supermarket.

If you are going to rely on farmers markets for fresh produce, the Sunday is a good place to buy root vegetables, like beets from Underwood Farms or yams and sweet potatoes from Yang Farms, or pluots and oranges from G Farms.

For leafy greens, berries and fresh fruit, shop at the Wednesday . Try to get there early because the market is very busy and popular items sell out quickly. To accomodate shoppers, the market opens at 7 a.m. on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving .

If you want a specialty turkey (organic, kosher, heritage), it would be good to order your bird now from , , or

Timeline

Put into your timeline details like when you will clean the house, wash and dry the tablecloth, check and clean all the dishes, silverware and glasses you want to use and, if you don't have enough, when you will pick up what you need to borrow from a friend. 

Do you have enough chairs? If not, work out when you will pick up extra ones and from where.

Also indicate when you will pick up flowers and the turkey. 

If ordering a cake from a local baker or a  from somewhere, check when they open and close. You wouldn't want your guests to miss enjoying an important part of the meal because you arrived after the store was closed.

If you're cooking the meal, figure out the timeline for your menu by sitting down at the dining room table with a pad of paper, a pen and a glass of wine (or cup of tea) and organize the dishes in terms of preparation and cooking time.

Some dishes can be prepped or made the day before. For instance, on Wednesday we roast the beets for the beet salad and wash, dry and wrap in aluminum foil the sweet potatoes and baked potatoes that we will cook Thursday

If you are buying a ready-to-serve meal, you still have to allow time to reheat the dinner. If you are cooking the entire meal, you need to account for every minute of the day.

In our small kitchen, we have a Wolf stove. I love the six burners, which helps big time on Thanksgiving but because there is only one oven, we have to strategize when to bake our pies since the turkey will monopolize the oven for most of the day.

Plan It Out

Detailed planning helps keep Thanksgiving Day manageable and fun. We write up a schedule that looks something like this:

6 a.m. Wash and prep the turkey.

6:15 a.m. Sauté onions, Italian sausage, shiitake mushrooms, parsley and garlic to mix together with the corn bread for the stuffing.

6:30 a.m. Preheat the oven to 350F degrees and stuff the turkey.

7 a.m. Put the turkey in the oven.

7:30 a.m. Make the cranberry sauce.

And so on, going hour by hour. Make sure to know how long each dish needs to cook so it will be on the table when dinner time arrives.

Clean up

Don't forget to pre-plan clean up.

Work out who will be doing clean up during the meal. As courses are finished, serving platters and plates need to be cleared.

Since our house is small and the kitchen is open to the dining room, we clean as we go. After each course, we are joined by members of the dinner party who bus the dirty dishes and silverware into the kitchen and then reset the table with clean plates and silverware.

Between the main course and dessert, we have a tradition of a friends and family walk around the block. A few volunteers remain behind to clean the dining room and kitchen so when everyone returns, desserts are on the table with fresh plates and silverware.

Having organized clean-up as part of the meal, the kitchen is in good shape and we can enjoy dessert. With a little bit of planning, Thanksgiving is a lot more fun.