My No-Fail Thanksgiving Formula

Plus, the most disastrous gathering I've ever hosted.

A few months after we got married, Adam and I hosted our first Thanksgiving in our 900-square-foot bungalow. As soon as both sides of our family arrived to help prepare the meal, we realized that the single toilet in the house wouldn’t flush. (To this day I blame my sister for throwing lettuce down the disposal that shared plumbing with the toilet… but I digress.) Both dads tried unsuccessfully to fix it, and we resigned ourselves to waiting several hours for the emergency plumber to arrive. 

A few hours (and several shuttles to the Starbucks bathroom) later, we finally sat down to dinner. Adam had fried a turkey for the first time, and though it was a bit charred we were all just thankful to finally eat. As he began carving the turkey, I realized with horror that I had forgotten to remove the plastic bag with giblets that was tucked inside—turns out, it had fried right along with the turkey. Let’s just say that the sides were the main event that Thanksgiving. And as disastrous as it was, I actually have great memories from that day. I think it was the first time I realized that an unforgettable gathering has nothing to do with a perfectly prepared meal. It’s all about the conversation.

Since then, Adam and I have hosted fifteen Thanksgivings, and we’ve dialed in our strategy so that it feels pretty effortless and is delicious, too. It’s all about planning a menu on the front-end that can be mostly prepared in advance, so you’re not battling for oven space or trying to get multiple dishes on the table all at once.

So, here’s the exact Thanksgiving menu “formula” I always use when I’m planning our menu, along with recipe options for each one. Thankfully, most of my family members are great cooks, so I also use this formula to divvy up what people will bring to the potluck.

Turkey

Adam usually fries a turkey outside, and I like to roast a second turkey for leftovers. There are so many turkey recipes out there claiming to be “the best,” but I think it’s hard to beat the simplicity of a classic brined turkey with crispy skin and a juicy interior. I asked my friend Michael Fojtasek, the owner/chef of Olamaie, to give us the perfect roast turkey recipe, and he more than delivered.