Appliance Logisitics Management

This blog title and my job title are pretty similar so you might think there might be a transferable skill or two that might make Thanksgiving Day Chaos in the Kitchen a little less so.  I have given this all of 5 minutes of thought and decided that yes, there are some skills I have that could be put to good use to determine what to cook when and where.  However, the thought of making a project schedule for Thanksgiving is a little too dorky, even for me.  But if we aren't going to use a project schedule to get everything cooked on delivered to the table while it's pipping hot, then how in the world do you do it?

Magic.  That's the best answer I can come up with.  Given the amount of time the turkey takes in the oven which very few if any other dishes can be cooking at the same time (in us single oven homes) and limitations of a 4 burner stove.  Then there is the question of when exactly the turkey will decide it's done.  Pretty much all of dinner hinges on how finicky your bird is.  Generally you can ball park the half an hour to an hour it will be done given the handy dandy decoder ring that comes on the back of all turkey packages.  But that doesn't help if you guess wrong by 45 minutes.

If you think about it, it's kind of like a race.  There is a decent warm up period where you wash the bird and get it all "happy" as Emeril would say.  Stretch the birds legs, rub it down and toss it on a rack on the oven while trying not to ooze raw turkey germs every place.  Once that oven door closes, it's like the shot is fired and you are off!  You only have 4 hours to mash potatoes, stuff the stuffing, make green bean casserole, bake bread/rolls, get the gravy going, make some sweet potato casserole, find room for all of this in your kitchen, set the table which includes finding serving spoons and dishes for everything you are making, watch 4 pots, and make 3 pies (if you have no sense and didn't do this a day or two before and if that's the case, I really pity you).  Let's not forget the how many times you are going to need to wash/rinse and reuse measuring cups and spoons unless you are crazy and have 2 or 3 sets like Rob and I do.  Oh right, and then calmly come to the table gracefully without hair full of flour or bits of potato on your clothes and preferably not sweating like a pig.  Thanks Martha Stewart.

Some of these things can be done the day before or by innocent bystanders, but they always seem to be really into the game on TV while you are frantically chopping away at the carrots and potatoes.  However, even with all your prep work, that final leg is like a give it your all to win the race finish.  Things are moving in an out of the oven like a revolving door at Macy's on Black Friday, dishes are getting added to the sink as if it should be bottomless and people start to hover in anticipation while things fly to the table.  It's amazing it all comes together (usually) in the eleventh hour.  I do remember one Thanksgiving where my mother had everything on the kitchen table and we ate the whole meal before we realized the stuffing had been left in the microwave.  You win some, you loose some.  More for leftovers later.  :)

So while we are all racing to the finish this Thanksgiving, remember to set a good pace and just finish strong.  Graceful would be a plus, but getting the turkey on the table is all that really matters in the end.