The location--Dobie Central, very lightly decorated for the occasion.
The guests: Shavers, Second Dobies (Emily, Kristin and Philip)|, Jane Rognlie, and Dobies Sr.
|The Menu:
This is my first year to try out the following dishes from Whole Foods:
Organic Turkey, 12 to 14 pound
Vegan Mushroom Gravy
Apple Cider Braised Brussels Sprouts with Pepitas
Maple Syrup Sweetened Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Herb Dressing
Emily and Kristin brought
Wild Rice Dressing (essentially mushrooms sauteed in butter plus wild and brown rices)
Three small Beckman's pies for dessert: pumpkin, berry and apple
Carolyn made an extra-big apple crisp (see recipe on this blog) with cranberries and toasted nuts.
Abby and Julia made Cranberry-Orange relish in the morning. Stephen took on the carving (he always does) and got the carcass into my crockpot for delicious day-after broth--twice, because it was too big to fit in all at once. Whatta guy!!
I'd give the turkey and gravy five stars--everyone agreed, not just me, that the flavor and tenderness were top-notch. The turkey produced enough juice that I might have been able to combine it with a turkey broth and make my own sauce, but pouring some into the mushroom gravy worked perfectly.
I would give the maple sweet potatoes and herb stuffing a 3 1/2 star rating. Good, solid flavor. Easy enough prep--just tuck in the oven or microwave as though I'd cooked it earlier myself. With a little doctoring up, they were very presentable sides. The brussels sprouts were irretrieveable little rocks with no flavor. They b ear no resemblane to the delicious ones we've had in restaurants.
So why, one might ask, would a person who has years of experience with and has schlepped dozens of raw, big, heavy, gross, scary-looking turkeys plus sides from store to table, decide to let Whole Foods do it? Well, yes, all of the above. In the words of a note over one of my turkey and gravy prep plans from years past, "sounds so easy, looks so scary." There are the years the gravy failed, the turkey platter slid down the counter and crashed onto the floor, it was underdone in the legs or overdone in the breast (even on the same bird), the brining container wouldn't fit in the fridge, and on and on. Most years were fine. Like wine producers or farmers, I've had my banner years and my off years with the whole shebang. Lately I'd been thinking about a backup dish to have on hand just in case something major went wrong (like the year I didn't know I had to pick up the turkey at Dittmer's the Butcher's the day before, back when all the stores were closed for the holiday, except, it turned out, the local 7-11) or the year I simply couldn't fit everything in the fridge and was more than grateful for the key to the neighbor's front door. Even w;ith a relatively smaller group, the back=up meal is expensive and takes up fridge space just when I need it for the hope-it-won't flop food
This year,'s is a small, easy-to-seat, exquisitely manageable group, I thought as I planned it out. I might actually have time to enjoy their company myself. (I don't begrudge the years I watched my family enjoying each other--the Rule According to Carolyn says that renewing ties is the main reason to do these holidays.) But the idea of not worrying about any of it was irresistably seductive. As I was going online to check out the prices of Whole Foods organic turkeys (raw) and stumbled across the photo of the Whole Foods Organic Turkeys (deliciously prepared, delectably browned, sourced from the same farm as the raw one I would have purchased) I was in.
"This isn't like going to a restaurant with food from God knows where, or like the Safeway-prepared Thanksgiving Aurora and I shared when our children were mostly preschoolers" I thought to myself. Whole Foods knows what they are doing, they know their audience and they aren't going to mess around with any food failures--they've had years to work the kinks out of the system," I told myself. It became rather like having a neighbor make the turkey. |Yes, it would be cold, but a lot of folks I know make the turkey the day before, anyway.
Being Carolyn the Suspicious, I didn't just assume any of this. I dropped into the store and checked it out with the Holiday Foods Rep seated at their order-taking table, who clearly thought I was (a) from another planet or (b) a plant from Molly Stone's. Questions about the turkey were easy: Distel Farms in Sonoma County not only raises them, they also cook and deliver, and they have been doing it for many years. I felt really good about that. Questions about the freshness of the vegetables and the amount of time from farm to prep to my table were harder. I determined that the foods are mostly or probably hand cooked in giant kitchens in Emeryville and they try to keep the prep to three days before delivery date. "Do you have people working around the clock to meet that schedule? How do you find enough food prep staff to make that work?" I enquired cheerily. The Holiday Orders Lady took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and said "I think I need my boss to answer some of these questions and she isn't here right now...." I told her not to worry, I appreciated everything she had told me, and hoped she would have a happy holiday.
|Looking back, ours was a happier holiday, if less dramatic and adventurous, for Whole Food's help. Even picking it up on Thanksgiving morning was a cheery, happy moment, with lots of people to say thank you do. I| would do the same turkey next year for sure, and the same gravy. Sides? Iwill make that call at the last minute, depending on who's here, what the weather is like, whether any major appliances are on the blink, and so forth.
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