NOV-DEC_flipbookupdated

HOLIDAYS

A Few Days Before: Delegate Recruit family and friends for specific tasks. Table setters: we like to get this done the night before and set up the chairs the day of so there’s room in which to maneuver. Bartenders: have a jug of Bloody Marys ready with the trimmings and vodka next to the glasses, wine and beer. Greeters: to answer the door and stow coats and purses. Food runners: to ferry the food and desserts to the table. Someone to bring ice. Someone else to bring propane if you’re using a smoker or grill. Only recruit those in your family or close friends who know what they’re doing to cook the day of. Otherwise, the kitchen will be a zoo. Post the menu on the refrigerator and make certain that anyone cooking has an assignment. One nephew trained as the family potato peeler, which led him to Delgado’s Culinary Arts program. Guests will ask to bring something. Suggest dessert. The array of different pies, cakes and cookies at Rouses are stunning. Discourage anything that requires refrigeration or heating. The Day Of: Everyone Has A Job If it is at all possible, look at your kitchen as if it were a restaurant — a line where cooking occurs, divide the room with a table and use the other side of the kitchen for those who want to visit. Set up a “job jar.” Anyone not scheduled to cook who enters the kitchen, does so at his or her own risk. Draw a slip from the job jar: Load dishwasher, empty dishwasher, scrub pots, takeout the garbage. Mop. Sweep. Chop. Fetch. Finally, if you’re cooking,make sure to take an occasional break, leave the kitchen and visit with your guests. It’s your job to entertain.

The Hunger games by Kit Wohl

T hose of you who get a little overwhelmed by planning Thanksgiving or Christmas for a very large group, let Rouses chefs do the cooking ... or make reservations.Those of you who love a challenge, stick with me. A Week Before: Prep Clean out the refrigerator and freezer. If there’s an old backup refrigerator in the garage, more space the better for storage. Collect ice chests from friends and family and clean them thoroughly — the better to chill soft drinks, beer and wine. Stay insanely protective about refrigerator space. Begin preparing as many dishes that can be frozen or held safely in the refrigerator. We know that family gumbo is on the post-dinner menu, so we try to cook a whole turkey weeks in advance, strip the meat, freeze it, and then make stock with the carcass and freeze that. Take stock of your supplies. If you don’t already have it, rent it. It is surprisingly inexpensive.Believe me.Call now.Order an extra table to use as a bar/buffet, plus extra dinnerware for last minute guests.The rental companies will deliver a day or two early, so be prepared to stow the items out of the way. Count the items in when they are delivered, then count them out when they are collected. I’m still looking for that white chair and the chafing dish I was compelled to purchase.

For sure rent or buy a hot box for keeping the food warm as the oven does its job. We would crumble without it — and we have two ovens and a microwave. They are not enough. One year we attempted a suckling pig, but it was too large for one oven.We cut the poor thing in half and used both ovens, assembling it for service wearing a tutu of fluted mashed potatoes. After that, we made a Cajun microwave, which worked just fine to cook the birds and pig, but we missed the smoky flavor it didn’t seem to impart. And it required someone to get up every two hours to keep it going. Clearly, we were doing something wrong. The solution was a smoker, about the size of a refrigerator. We could smoke several turkeys, fresh ham (no more suckling pig), and ducks.Tending was an all day guy thing, beginning early, luring them with a Rouses ice chest of beer placed next to the smoker. Any barbecue/smoker setup will ease the inevitable oven crisis.

photo by Romney Caruso

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