Thanksgiving Feast

This should be like the Super Bowl to a food blogger. An American holiday dedicated almost entirely to eating (I realize that isn't the real reason for the holiday ... but you know what I mean.)  This was my very first time being the cook for Thanksgiving. For 31 years someone else has toiled in the kitchen all day so I could overindulge.  After the day was said & done, my wife asked if I had fun. I honestly said "yes" because it was a real point of pride to be able to lay out a spread of delicious food for my family.

Here is a mosaic picture of all the dishes I prepared yesterday.  Over the course of today and tomorrow I plan to write a blog entry for each dish.

I used our "Gourmet" cookbook and "Bon Appetit" magazine to help with the recipes. None of the recipes were my idea; but I did make a few minor additions based on what I thought would be good.

The biggest piece of advice from Bon Appetit was "Make. A. Damn. Plan."

My dad always said that timing was the hardest part. I laid out all the recipes first and made a shopping list. Thankfully we only had to go to the store once and weren't forced to make any last-minute trips to get forgotten items.

Then I listed the times for each dish to see which should be started first. I numbered them in order and had a gameplan. The next best thing I did was do as much prep work as possible in the morning.  I spent probably two hours slicing, peeling, seasoning, and even par-cooking items.  I wanted to have all my mise en place done so when the hectic part of the cooking started I would be ready to go.  It was a HUGE help, let me tell you.

But we all know the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.  The very first thing I worked on a 8:30 AM on Thanksgiving day was my Brussels sprouts salad. About one minute in a sliced about a 1/8" piece of my right thumb clean off.  It literally landed in the bowl without any blood.

After throwing that away, cleaning & bandaging the now throbbing wound on my dominant hand, I set to work slicing and dicing without the use of my thumb.  I often admire chefs on "Chopped" or "Top Chef" who persevere through adversity like this. It wasn't easy. But I wasn't going to let something like that derail an entire day.  (It turns out it makes it hard to type as well -- in case you were wondering.)

Doesn't that look worth it?  I know it was.