For the past few years, my cousin The Beez and I have more or less hijacked the planning and preparing of our extended family’s Thanksgiving dinner. And while hosting Turkey Day (or Tofurkey Day, if your relatives are hippies) for a crowd is many people’s worst nightmare, we get totally geeked out about it, to the point of making multiple spreadsheets for planning purposes. (Oh, you snicker now, but if you skip our advice and end up running out to 7-Eleven at 4pm on Thanksgiving Day for canned cranberry sauce, who will be laughing?)
This year, rather than schlepping on the Bolt bus on the most nightmarish travel day of the year, we are having T-Day right here in Brooklyn, chez The Beez. The prospect of not leaving the mother of boroughs is a massive relief to both of us. And I would like to pass that stress savings along to you, gentle reader; hence Thanksgiving 101, the BGC guide to Thanksgiving planning!
Herewith, the first installment of we-haven't-decided-how-many-yet in our Thanksgiving 101 series: how to gather all the groceries you need without running around town like a turkey with its head cut off. (See what I did there?)
Back to those spreadsheets: A key one is the grocery list, organized into columns by food category so that you're not running back and forth from aisle to aisle. If there are certain items you expect that you will only be able to get at a specialty store, keep these separate at the bottom, so they don't slip through the cracks when you're crossing stuff off at your local Try-N-Save.
Here is a partially filled-in sample of the list (and I do mean partially—for our family meal, this baby usually stretches to, like, 30 rows). You can download the template here. Obvi, you could add or delete your own categories.
REGULAR GROCERIES | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Produce | Meat | Dairy | Dry/Canned Goods | Baking | Misc. & Non-Food |
Onions (5 lb) | Turkey (20 lb) | Heavy cream | Canned cranberry sauce | Brown sugar | Frozen spinach (2x8oz pkg) |
Leeks (4) | Italian sausage (1 lb.) | Eggs (2 doz.) | Chick peas (2 cans) | Semisweet chocolate | Phyllo dough |
Butternut squash (2 lb.) | Parmesan cheese (1 lb.) | Pecans (8 oz.) | Cornmeal | Aluminum sheet pans | |
Brussels sprouts (2 lb.) | Buttermilk | Pumpkin puree (4 cans) | Yeast | Wooden toothpicks | |
SPECIALTY ITEMS | |||||
Morels | Prosciutto | Creme fraiche | Jarred chestnuts | Beef demiglace | |
Ground lamb | Mascarpone cheese | Dried cherries | Xanax |
A few other shopping tips:
More Thanksgiving 101 posts to come, including menu-planning tips and ideas, and prep countdown timeline! Meanwhile, you can practice the shopping-by-category method for your regular grocery trips. Tell me that doesn’t save time.
Note: Special thanks to Debzita for helping me remember the name of the supermarket on The Simpsons.
Praise.
ReplyDeleteI would like this spread sheet to be in the shape of the Red Hook Fairway.
ReplyDeleteThat's the download for premium members. Just give us your credit card number and we'll be sure to send it right away.
ReplyDeleteActually, that's a great point - reordering the columns to fit your market's aisle order.
ReplyDeleteAlso, once you send your credit card #, there is this really sweet Nigerian prince I want to introduce you to, you will not believe what he has gone through!