if you’ve seen Norman Rockwell’s Thanksgiving painting showing Grandma lifting a big turkey onto a well-laden table, you might have noticed two things: One, the young family is sitting and waiting to be served;  two, Grandma is still able to stand up. There used to be a slogan in the old “I Love New York” campaign which was as true for Thanksgiving as for New York. It’s No Place For Amateurs.

Why is this meal the hardest meal of the year? Pole-vaulting ambition (Martha Stewart is backed up by an army, you’re not, so get over it), optimism about complicated timing, and, most of all, misguided ideas of what people really want from the day, what will make them happy. Keep it simple. Plan ahead. If you’re tempted to embellish, don’t.

First, clean the house and set the table days ahead (turn the glasses upside down to keep them dustless). Shop early. Write down the menu and order of work. Take out serving pieces needed, cover them with clean dish towels. Buy wine with screw tops, put the whites on the attic stairs or some other cool place. Set up a bar somewhere out of your way. And so forth. Think way ahead and use your common sense.

Now for the food. Many families’ menus are written in stone, and I have heard tales of screams and shouts should the cook decide to eliminate such old favorites as canned sweet potatoes topped with big melty marshmallows. Ignore this after-the-fact backseat driving.

All you really need to do is give a nod to tradition and move on. If you want a big roast turkey, you’ll have to time that and do it early on the day (I’m assuming an afternoon meal). What makes things frantic is getting it all ready at the same time, but this can be done if you simplify the menu and do prep work in advance. Here follows a guide to a simplified meal:

Stuffing: Assembled and cooked on the day, but you can have all the ingredients ready the day before. Chop onions, wash herbs, dice and oven-dry bread, cook sausage, whatever, depending on your recipe. I like stuffing cooked separately, and be aware that a stuffed turkey needs more time to bake.

Gravy: Can be made days ahead. I freeze chicken drippings during the year and add them, but don’t worry if you haven’t, it’ll be fine. Use canned chicken stock and taste as you go. You can add the turkey neck and giblets (but not the liver) to the stock to enrich it.  Add the actual turkey drippings the day after Thanksgiving.

Green beans: An easy choice, these can be blanched the day before until almost cooked, plunged into cold water, drained well and refrigerated. Sauté in a skillet with butter, amended, if you like, with herbs, garlic, etc., whatever you choose.

Mashed potatoes:  Absolutely Not, Too Last Minute. Make them the day after and play Rivers and Dams with the leftover turkey-drippinged gravy.

I offer here a superior alternative to the potatoes, along with a different way with cranberries. You can do both of these weeks ahead of the day.

Butternut Squash

Disregard all recipes that say peel and chop, unless you have a ready supply of Band-Aids on hand. To save on cleanup, cover a raised-edge baking sheet with heavy-duty foil. Wash squash, place on a rack on the sheet, and bake at 375 degrees until easily pierced with a toothpick, usually about 1 and 1/2 hours. Cool, cut into lengthwise halves, remove seeds, scrape out flesh and put through a food mill (or mash, if you don’t have a mill, which you should buy. Never put this or potatoes into a food processor, and a mixer isn’t ideal either). How many squash?  I don’t know, how many people?  I bake several and keep some frozen for other battles.  Anyway, freeze, thaw ahead and amend as you wish. If butter isn’t enough for you, doctor it up with some or all of the following:  for each cup of squash, 1 TB. unsalted butter, I tsp. light brown sugar, salt and pepper, a light shake of ginger. This is a guide, you don’t have to measure it all out, just be moderate. Add some spoonfuls of frozen orange juice concentrate, maybe some chopped pecans sautéed in the butter. Taste and amend, better less than more. You can do this the day before and just heat it up later. A warning: squash heated in a sauce pan is volcanic, watch out for the hot bubbles and stir so it doesn’t scorch. Can be reheated at a low temperature in a pan or in an oven. Really good.

Cherried Cranberries

Most recipes involve bursting the berries in a saucepan, but this keeps them whole, and they keep in the refrigerator for months.


4 cups cranberries. Pick them over, remove stem bits, discard too soft ones, rinse and drain well.
1/4 cup water
2 cups sugar

Place berries in an 8x8 glass baking dish, add water. SPREAD the sugar over the top of the berries, like frosting on a cake, do not mix into the cranberries. Cover with foil, pry up one corner of it to allow some steam to escape. Put on a foil-covered baking sheet (it usually boils over a bit) and bake at 300 to 325 for about an hour or so. Stir the sugar through the berries until dissolved, if it isn’t already (more oven may be needed).Try not to break the berries when stirring, and watch out, it’s hot. Refrigerate.

All of this will give you a simple, colorful meal, which you can serve in moderate portions. If there’s too much food everyone will go lie down and leave you with the dishes, wondering who these people are and thinking that living in Paris all by yourself sounds like a good idea.

Dessert

Make it ahead, buy it, accept offers to supply it. Or do what I do:

Put three cheeses (on separate plates, blue, runny Camembert, cheddar), grapes, apples, pears, a wooden bowl of walnuts in shells, crackers and bread on the table. Add some small tartlets — apple, pecan, pumpkin, whatever, you can make or order them ahead to buy. Give everyone a clean plate and a knife and fork and keep pouring the wine. You might be surprised by how long people will sit at the table having a little of this, a little of that, and talking as the afternoon light fades.

That’s what Thanksgiving should really be about, and now you know.

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Written by
Pamela Osborne