69. Cook Thanksgiving dinner for friends – updated 1/1/09

So, as most of y’all know, almost 6 weeks ago, I cooked Thanksgiving dinner for twenty of my friends.  It all started some time in early October when Holly made a throw-away suggestion that we should have a big dinner and, honestly, at this point, I can’t remember if Thanksgiving was mentioned or not.  So, I latched on to that and ran.  I think a year of adding more and more cooking blogs to my Google Reader and an increasing interest in the recipes we grew up having at my Grandmother’s had given me a hankering to actually put all this reading and secondhand knowledge to use.  And so it started.  The reseraching the turkey and various turkey cooking methods.  The collecting of the recipes.  The letters to and from my Grandmother, recipes, suggestions, phone calls, emails, blogs, and the list goes on and on.

Aside: One letter from my Grandmother included this priceless gem: “This letter and the following information makes me think I’m making a lesson plan.  These are suggestions for your Thanksgiving Dinner – I am so proud of all of you granddaughters to be preparing food “from scratch,” entertaining friends and interested in the social graces.  Often, you all talk about food and dishes I am not even sure of what they are!!?  That’s my pleasure and education.”  More after the jump…

The invitations went out and suddenly, it actually hit me that I was going to be cooking my very first Thanksgiving dinner for 20 of my friends.  I think it was around that time that I actually saved a “Thanksgiving POA” on my desktop, there were menus and recipes and shopping lists and timelines.  It was pretty intense and, in hindsight, over the top, but I don’t know if I could have survived the whole thing without all of them.  There was a shopping trip to Wal-Mart and Wegmans for staples, which I hauled around in the back of my car for a week.  There was putting the pages of my “plan” in sheet protectors, so I would have my recipes all in one place.  There was deciding not to serve tomato juice cocktail.  There was a fair amount of freaking out on the day before, when, in the midst of all the prep work and cleaning, I couldn’t figure out how it was all going to get done.  Then there was Sunday afternoon when I seemed to have prepared too well and ended up with nothing to do (thanks, in large part to Holly’s awesome celery and carrot chopping!).

In the end, the biggest issue, besides me dropping the gravy boat before I even took it out of its Target bag, was that the turkey was done about 45 minutes before I planned.  Otherwise, it was, not to pat myself on the back, a very good attempt.  Thanks to all the planning and handwringing, the food pretty much all got done at the same time, or was all hot when we got ready to eat.  Justine came through with an amazing spinach dip that I’m still hearing compliments about.  Ryan and Dan took a huge load off my shoulders and carved the turkey with remarkable skill (and thankfully so, seeing as there wasn’t much turkey left and if I’d put my amateur hand to it, it probably would have yielded about 1/2 the meat they were able to carve up).  Holly brought a sweet potato casserole that a huge hit (seriously, people were asking for the recipe the next day, and possibly on their way out the door that night).

Being able to share many of my family’s Thanksgiving traditions (cheese straws, dressing patties, fix ahead mashed potatoes, homemade bran rolls) with some of my dearest friends, my DC family, if you will, was a true blessing and made for a very special night.

As I was doing the prep, I took a lot of pictures, I think I was fancying myself a temporary food blogger.   And, while that hasn’t come to pass, yet, I am already making plans for next year’s Friendsgiving dinner.  Which will be potluck.

Updated 1/1/09:  I neglected to mention the awesome brownies that Stacy brought and Jake’s amazing pecan pies, which saved me from having to worry about dessert and were both huge hits.