Thanksgiving conundrum

[Anonymous]

My extended family is celebrating a big milestone birthday over Thanksgiving this year, taking advantage of people being off work and school to have a special dinner.

The dinner is Wednesday night, at a restaurant. We are renting a large house in a central location and also have some other events planned over the weekend while we are all together. But on Thanksgiving, the plan is just to watch the parade and football and hang out at the house. But no one, including me, is really enthusiastic about trying to cook a Thanksgiving meal in a rental kitchen especially when we have this big event the night before, so there wont' be a ton of time to prep. I had originally considered trying to make most of the meal the weekend before and freeze it and bring it with us (just do the turkey day of), but now we also have another social commitment that weekend before and it's just not realistic.

Here are the ideas I had for food on Thanksgiving Day, trying to think through the pluses and minuses to these options. Or if there is another option I haven't thought of:

1) Get a traditional Thanksgiving meal catered from Whole Foods, they will apparently package the whole thing up for you and you just reheat and serve things.

2) Make a totally non-traditional meal that is much easier to prepare and we know will be a crowd pleaser the day of (we were thinking enchiladas).

3) Make a few lasagna casseroles two weeks before and freeze, and then reheat day of and get stuff for salad.

No matter what we'll make sure there's tons of snack food, stuff for breakfast and lunch, etc. at the house.

Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Have the meal catered.

[Anonymous]

"The dinner is Wednesday night, at a restaurant."

Is this a thanksgiving dinner? If so, it's ridiculous to have the same food the next day.

[Anonymous]

Just get Thanksgiving food catered from WF.

[Anonymous]

This doesn't sound like a problem. Chinese restaurants are open, steakhouses are open, you could do the Whole Foods thing - you have tons of options. Just pick one.

[Anonymous]

I would get it to-go from any grocery store or restaurant that's convenient. IME Whole Foods is not particularly good.

Where are you going to be? Maybe someone will have a suggestion.

[Anonymous]

Does your family care about Thanksgiving food?

Nobody in my family is very attached to thanksgiving dishes, so this would be a good excuse to do something different. Everyone I know would rather get Thai or Chinese takeout than generic Whole Foods catering. But definitely get catering. Nobody wants to have old casseroles for Thanksgiving.

[Anonymous]

I think any of these are fine options. Something we've had to adjust to in recent years in our family with aging parents is that holidays are more about the people than the menu. For instance, on Thanksgiving we had two elderly mothers who were both on soft food diets (for completely different reasons, and this is not a usual restriction for either of them, so it's not like this is a normal situation we're used to dealing with) - we just changed the menu and rolled with it.

It's wonderful that you'll all be together and if you love enchiladas, have enchiladas. Maybe make them turkey enchiladas if you want a 'wink' to the tradition.

[Anonymous]

Any of these will work, it just depends on whether anyone in your group cares about eating turkey on turkey day.

Between #2 and #3 - I would not want to cook anything that Thursday, but enchiladas could also be made ahead and frozen. That would get my personal vote.

[Anonymous]

Whole Foods is better than Balduccis ime. Publix is good if there is one where you will be.

[Anonymous]

Go with non-traditional— unless you think there are family members who would really miss it. One of my favorite holiday meals was the year we got takeout Chinese food instead of doing our usual menu.

[Anonymous]

1 or 2

3 is a hard no.

[Anonymous]

This seems like a no-brainer: get thanksgiving catered.

[Anonymous]

Your favorite foods sound fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This doesn't sound like a problem. Chinese restaurants are open, steakhouses are open, you could do the Whole Foods thing - you have tons of options. Just pick one.

Just out the options you listed plus non-traditional take-out up for a vote.