Next Year: Thanksgiving 629

Thanks Desert Rainbow,

You have some great ideas and I love the idea of buying a refrigerator and then selling it. We were talking about buying one because it gets to be impossible with one.

Tell me how you roast a turkey on the bbq. We have two bbqs. One is an MHP with two sets of burners and the other is a big charcoal bbq with 4 grates. I would imagine that one would be better for indirect heat if we put the coals on both sides of the turkey. Do you use a roasting pan?

For the two turkeys that are oven roasted, are they brought to Thanksgiving or made at your aunt and uncle's house. Some here have mentioned a table top roaster which sounds like a pretty good idea.

We have the dishes, 24, 12 and 12 and we'd ask people to bring bridge chairs and two tables. The reason I asked about buying the best throw aways, is because they can go right into a garbage bag and out to the pails. But, I agree, there is something nice about china, sterling and stemware.

I like the idea of predetermined responsibilities because there are those people who never get up to help. I would imagine making the buttignments can be a little dicey when someone would rather not wash. This year, my wife did all the washing, her asparagus friend and sister-in-law did the tables and putting away leftovers. I can see where pre-organized responsibilities would have had other people doing the washing, because with 18 people, many others were available. Next year with 41, the job will be much larger and these things tend to grow geometrically. Definitely we could use designated washers, dryers and climbers (to put everything away). We have a dishwasher but it hardly handled dishes for 18 and we did three or 4 washings. Yes, I definitely think before everyone gets here, they need to know what to do, if we don't use plastic and if we don't hire help.

The chafers are a good idea and we should have done it this year. I would think that should allow us to take cooked dishes that people bring and get them right into the chafers. That would go for hot hors d'oeuvres too.

This year we had bruschetta from Costco, which surprisingly nobody ate and it was pretty good and the bread was lightly brushed with an evoo wgarlic, thyme, pepper and rosemary. We also had Costco's franks in a blanket and egg rolls, which again not a lot of people ate but a bunch of people came an hour plus late and we in the kitchen were too busy. Finally we had cruditŽs with dip but I think with the lateness and people a little diet conscious and trying to save room the hors d'oeuvres didn't go. Again, if everyone comes on time, next time and they come with their food cooked, the hors d'oeuvres will go.

The good thing about renting chairs is that nobody gets stuck with flimsy ones.

I wonder if anyone in this group used really good plastic dishes, stemware and utensils, how much it cost and how it worked out. I think the only thing that would bother me would be drinking good wine out of plastic cups.

Alan

Eating outdoors would be great but, being in NY, that's not an option. On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 16:34:42 -0800, "Desert Rainbow"