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Sunday, November 16, 2008
How NOT to host a holiday
I planned and planned but an ancient oven, an act of God and an angry husband ruined my holiday!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There are literally hundreds of publications and TV shows ready to tell you how to create the perfect Thanksgiving, but very few willing to reveal how they’ve screwed up their own in the past.
Since I have no shame, I will share with you how last year’s joyful Thanksgiving with my husband’s family and my parents turned into an ugly battle over whether to serve undercooked turkey to freezing guests waiting on a screened porch.
The holiday started out lovely. We had convinced Michael’s dad, stepmother, sister, brother and brother’s girlfriend to be with us for Thanksgiving. We were thrilled to have the whole family together and wanted everything to be perfect.
I searched books and online sites for weeks looking for just the right recipes. I recorded and watched hours of the Food Network determined to have a juicy, flavorful turkey.
All of the food was started on time, and we seemed to be humming along. My mother-in-law and I were working well as a team and having fun in the kitchen.
Around 11 a.m. we decided the temperature outside was crisp but not too cold, and we would eat our Thanksgiving meal on the screened porch around 2 p.m. We thought it would give it a very Fall feel, plus the kitchen and dining room were hot from the double ovens.
So we carried out six extra chairs, and set two large tables on the porch with cloths, all the fine china, silver and crystal. I even had a buffet table set up for drink service and for the food to come.
Inside the house, I had a probe thermometer in the turkey linked to an outside monitor that would beep when the turkey hit the correct (SAFE) temperature. We could watch as the internal temperature of the bird ticked higher and higher.
At first it seemed like the turkey was cooking too fast so we cut the heat slightly in my 25-year-old oven. Then as we were getting closer to serving, the internal temperature on the turkey wasn’t rising quickly enough. We had almost all the other dishes ready to go and were on time to serve, but the turkey was still a good 20 degrees below temperature. I cranked the heat on the oven.
Around this time, we also became aware that over the last few hours the temperature outside had oddly dropped about 10 to 15 degrees. When I went outside it felt good to me because I was so hot from working in the kitchen. My mother said tables are set. It’s too hard to move everything. Just keep it out there. So we did.
The clock kept ticking. Ten minutes late. Twenty minutes late. Thirty minutes late. I was feeling the pressure, and my husband was getting ugly. “Just serve it,” he demanded. “The temperature of the turkey doesn’t matter. It’s been in there long enough.”
I refused. I just kept picturing all 11 guests in the emergency room because I poisoned them with undercooked poultry. I wasn’t doing it.
He continued to harass me. Just serve it, he said along with a few other choice words. Had my husband just said, “I’m embarrassed that my Dad and family are waiting and that dinner is late. Is there something we can start on?” I would have said, “Yes , let’s have the pasta as an appetizer instead of with the meal.” (They’re Italian, they have pasta at Thanksgiving.) However, since he was just yelling at me about the turkey, I was just fighting back on that issue.
By the time we served, it was about an hour after our planned dinnertime, and it was downright freezing on the porch. We ended up having to wear coats. I was so angry at my husband for being so ugly to me that I couldn’t’ enjoy the food that we had spent hours preparing.
Meanwhile, my dad sat there in a ski jacket clutching his own arms chattering BRRRR.BRRRR, which wasn’t really helping matters.
I continued to fight my husband into the night. I was really mad at being treated so poorly when I had worked so hard on the meal, plus I knew he was just plain wrong about the temperature of the turkey. He continued to also be angry. I ended up printing out the USDA guidelines for the safe temperature of cooked poultry, as well as the effects of food poisoning and shoving it at him before stomping off to bed.
I think my husband apologized days later — maybe I just want to believe he did. We did have a discussion about better communications and helping to solve the problem instead of just yelling at each other.
Looking ahead to this year’s holiday, Michael’s family is braving a return visit. My mother-in-law and I are going through our plan before they even leave their state.
I am buying an oven thermometer to calibrate my old ovens’ temperatures and will start the turkey way earlier than I think is necessary.
And I don’t care if it’s 70 degrees outside, we will be serving in the dining room this year no matter what!
Have you ever messed up a holiday meal or celebration? (Remember you have anonymity.) What happened? Where did it all go wrong? Did you do better the next year?
You can email Theresa with ideas at ajcmomania@gmail.com.
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