Santa Claus doesn’t take Christmas off. So after being absent here since spring, I’m back for Thanksgiving, the Superbowl for home cooks and my fave holiday by far. We eat, and we give thanks. My kind of holiday.
On any given Thursday, the food we eat in America is as diverse as the world – meat-and-potatoes, curries, stir fries, tacos and savory stews. Thanksgiving is the one day of the year Americans – at home and around the world – voluntarily eat more or less the same meal. Growing up as the child of immigrants, dinner at my house didn’t normally look like dinner at my friends’ homes. But on Thanksgiving we were one with Americans everywhere. I still love that.
Thanksgiving’s early this year, because November started on a Thursday. Don’t stress if you’re not ready. With a little organization, there’s plenty of time left.
I’m sharing a day-by-day timeline to keep us both on track, plus a list to mark what to make and what to outsource. I have a few pro tips, and at the end I assembled all my Thanksgiving recipes here for you from the archives.
Tip 1: Make what you like most. Outsource the rest.
Thanksgiving should be a potluck situation. Sharing is the spirit of the holiday. Guests contribute a dish they like to make or want to eat, and hosts appreciate the team effort.
It generally makes sense for the host to handle turkey and gravy, since it’s hard to transport a hot, slippery bird. Side dishes, desserts and drinks are fair game for outsourcing.
I love when friends and family bring their additional Thanksgiving traditions to the table. My mom makes sticky rice stuffing in addition to my bread stuffing, and Asian stir fried green beans. For my mother-in-law in Ohio, Thanksgiving isn’t complete without coleslaw. For my sister-in-law’s Italian family, Thanksgiving turkey comes with a side of lasagna. It’s always an unexpected assortment, and we enjoy it all.
I admit I don’t really outsource the basics – turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy – because I enjoy making them. But I think it’s a wise idea to share the load. At the end of this post you’ll find a link to a printable worksheet you can use to organize your list of what to cook/buy/outsource to a willing guest.
Tip 2: Simple is good.
It’s tempting to make Thanksgiving more complex than it needs to be. You could have cornbread stuffing with sausage, apples, dried cranberries, toasted walnuts and fresh sage, next to cranberry sauce with orange zest, Grand Marnier and pecans, next to mashed potatoes with cream cheese, chives and three cheeses. But I find the complexities get a little lost, and the meal gets unnecessarily heavy.
Each dish at Thanksgiving only needs to do one job. The combination on the plate is where the magic happens. read on…
