Thanksgiving
27 November 2004, 10:19 PM

Thursday was Thanksgiving at our house - 11 people and lots of food. It was a Thanksgiving first and a smashing success!

See, Thanksgiving for both of our families is one of those great holidays where family ALWAYS gets together and eats a lot of good food. But what happens when you get married and you suddenly have more than one family and more than one dinner to go to? A year or so before we got married, Jeff and I saw an episode of Dharma and Greg that somewhat foreshadowed what we'd experience on our first married Thanksgiving. To wit - we had a full Thanksgiving meal with my family close to noon and then a full Thanksgiving meal at his folk's place around 7pm, 300 miles away. In the same day. Whoa.

So the decision was made. The next Thanksgiving (and probably all subsequent ones) would be at our house. Actually, we'd thought about doing that even before we were married. It just seemed natural, since Christmas would probably always be spent with his family and New Years would be spent with mine. It seemed like a good idea to take on Thanksgiving, especially since we liked to cook and had the space for it in our new house. But that first year we simply weren't ready - there were boxes to unpack, rooms to paint, and simply too much for us to do to be able to prepare. This year was different. We knew we could do it.

If you've never done a large dinner party, just know that the cliche is true - plan, plan, plan. Since we did, everything went smoothly and it wasn't an overwhelming amount of work either.

Since we knew we could potentially have at least 12 people we started planning early. In the early spring we started jotting down ideas that included everything from what foods we might cooks, to lighting, decorating and timeline ideas. It was a good idea, since it allowed us to throw out some ideas (it'd take too much time, or was too much extra work for this first Thanksgiving) and note where we might need something (did we have enough plates? enough chairs? What would we do for a big enough table?) Every-time something occurred to us, we'd jot it down.

When October rolled around we sat out on the porch with all these jumbled and jotted down notes and discussed it all. We decided on food, figured out what we'd need to buy, when we'd need to setup and what we could prepare in advance. It actually turned out less complicated than one might imagine for what turned out to look fairly elaborate.

First, we figured out the seating. We had some folding utility tables in the garage that worked out perfectly. We did have to buy one extra, since it had not survived a move, but with two 8 footers side by side and a five footer capping one end we created an enormous table that could accommodate a lot of people. Since our living room was still completely empty, we setup in there, next to the fireplace.

The hard part was finding a table cloth. At first I thought I could use a bunch of white fabric jeff had bought a few years ago at Walmart for $1 a yard. Unfortunately it needed to be doubled over the keep the ugly tables from showing through and wasn't enough to stretch over the tables that way. I was going to have to make one. Hancock fabrics was useless - everything was either too expensive or just not very nice looking for a hand-made tablecloth. I found the perfect fabric at a local quilting store and had only to make one cut and sew a center seam and hem to have a gorgeous fall-themed tablecloth.

Everything else was easier. We used stuff I already had and a few pumpkins and flowers to make a nice arrangement. A lucky find at the grocery store turned up inexpensive chargers which made the mismatched plates look elegant. Half the chairs we'd be able to borrow from his parents. The seating and dining table was covered and done a week in advance.

That gave us plenty of time to do the rest. We tidied the house and hung up some things that'd been lying around for months. I set up our dining room (since we were using the living room for dining) as a buffet area. The dining table was the main courses buffet. The buffet cabinet was for desserts. And a china cabinet became a spot for appetizers. We kinds figured on family arriving before food was ready, so we wanted stuff they could munch on in the mean time.

I was probably channeling Martha Stewart when I setup the dining room, but in my defense I have to say that I wanted to make sure that I had a bowl for and space for everything we actually planned on making! I also wanted to make sure people would be able to help us put the food out and keep everything hot at the same time. I used caterers tricks to give the table some interest. (A couple of boxes and the white fabric I didn't use for the table cloth.) Then I started digging out bowls and baking dishes and platters. I'd check a food off the list as I put out it's bowl and put a labeled sticky note inside. We did end up actually removing a few bowls later, when the menu was adjusted, but at least I knew I had enough. The sticky notes also helped a lot. When it came time for dinner, my sis brought bowls from the buffet - the right one for each food and knew exactly where to put the bowl back. Tres efficient!

The dining room was also setup about a week in advance - it took only about a half hour one weekend, though I kept tweaking it thereafter. When it came down to it, the only thing we had to really concern ourselves with the week of Thanksgiving was last-minute things and cooking. We adjusted the menu after an actual trip to the grocery store. (For example, we were going to do roasted ears of corn, but they didn't have ears, so we substituted broccoli.) Having a menu in advance also helped, because we knew if we'd have enough burners and what stuff we could make a day or hours ahead and just heat up, etc.

On the day-of, Jeff did everything non-food (getting the extra chairs we needed, etc.) and I finished up the food. We did get up early to start the duck in the slow cooker, but were able to go back to sleep for a few hours before really getting started. About an hour before dinner the place was a hive of activity and we must have had a ZILLION offers of "can we help you with anything?" :-) Not to worry - we planned ahead so much that even the dish washer was empty and ready for all the plates so that clean up would be quick.

So what did we have?

The menu:

Appetizers:
Three cheeses: a mild Danish blue cheese, a peppered goat cheese and a camembert.
Crackers
Grapes, pears and dates
Pomegranate seeds
Artichoke leaves and butter dipping sauce

Meats:
Smoked turkey
Slow-cooked duck
Grilled sirloin strips
Baked fish (tilapa wrapped in grape leaves)

Sides:
Haricot verts (the smaller, tenderer green beans) with pine nuts
Steamed broccoli
Steamed yellow squash
Kernel corn
Peas and carrots
Garlic mashed potatoes
Mixed green salad with vinaigrette
Wild rice

Condiments:
"Rizvi" gravy
Brown gravy
Cream gravy
Cranberry sauce

Drinks:
Ice water
Lingonberry juice
Apple Juice
Grape Juice
Sweetened Thai Iced Tea

We had everyone else bring desserts and ended up with a cherry pie, pecan pie, apple pie and cake with a apricot fruit glaze topping. We did also make some creme brulees since taking a blow torch to one's dessert is always a hit with guests. :-)

It was an absolutely WONDERFUL evening. The kitty probably would disagree since she hid under the bed the whole time, but the rest of us had a great time. Jeff's mom sent us some flowers which added some pizzaz to the buffet tables, and my parents brought housewarming gifts. My sister also brought a thankyou/Eid gift. (She's a pediatrician and stayed with us two days a week during the summer and part of the fall while commuting from Houston to a temporary position at a clinic in Austin.) Everybody got to meet and talk to each other again.

Now that we've done it once, we have the things we need, and don't have to do quite so much planning. We're looking forward to doing it again.

Here's pictures of the setup: