What You Should Already Have Done For Thanksgiving
LatestAre all those checklists for Thanksgiving dinner stressing you out? The ones that start weeks, even a month, in advance? Well, you are not nearly stressed out enough. Here are all the things you have already failed to do.
Nine months before your birth
As soon as she conceived you, your mom should have embarked on a diet of dark leafy greens and low-mercury, high-omega-3 fish. This was necessary to prepare your fetal brain for the stresses of one day hosting Thanksgiving. But your mom probably ate candy and burgers, didn’t she, that lush?
First grade
While other kids are learning how to pick boogers and spell “butthead,” you should have been mastering simple cooking techniques — boiling pasta, sauteing vegetables, making a basic coq au vin. Your parents could have read those Cooking With Dexter columns in the Times for inspiration. What? They weren’t published back then? Well, they should’ve been.
Sixth grade
This is when you should have started planning for the social aspects of the holiday. You should have built up a robust friend network that would have given you the confidence and people skills necessary to host large gatherings. You should definitely not have had lunch in the band room.
High school
At this point, you should have started hosting parties. Fun, cool parties, but also parties that utilized your cooking and table-scaping skills. Rather than drinking rum and Cokes and playing an awkward game of Twister, you should have been making leaf-shaped, hand-frosted pot brownies. Organic pot brownies.
College
It is (or rather it was) time to think about money. You should have majored in something that would have enabled you to pay for the various cooking implements you’ll need, such as a turkey deep-fryer and a full set of Le Creuset cookware. Another option at this point would have been to inherit $1 billion.
Two years ago
If you didn’t have one already, this would have been the time to buy a beautiful and spacious home. You should have picked one with a large formal dining room and plenty of space for mingling and enjoying pre-dinner hors d’oeuvres. You also needed a kitchen island. Two years should be plenty of time to decorate your home in a style that’s tasteful yet also uniquely you.
One year ago
At this point you should have quit your job in order to devote yourself full-time to Thanksgiving preparation. If you had followed the advice in the “college” section, this would have been eminently feasible.
March
As soon as the ground thawed, you should have begun planting your garden, including heirloom varieties of potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, wheat (for making your own bread), and aljgivaeka. What’s aljgivaeka? If you’d been on top of things, you would know by now.