5 Days of Cooking for 20 Minutes of Eating

In order to keep an historical record of what it takes to put a Thanksgiving Dinner on the table, I have decided to make a daily update this week of all the preparations. Don't get me wrong, this is not an effort to complain or make my husband feel guilty for watching football on Thursday. I LOVE Thanksgiving...I love to plan, I love to cook, I love to get the family together and EAT. I think in recent years Thanksgiving has become my favorite holiday. But it's also a lot of work, and I thought it would be enlightening for my own benefit to document exactly what it takes to pull off this kind of event.

So here is where we are so far. I have already decided the menu...we're pretty traditional around here. I have done Thanksgiving about 7 years now, so I'm sticking with my old tried and true standbys for the most part. However, I do like to try out a couple of new recipes every year. This year I'm making a new stuffing recipe, I'm replacing my usual broccoli with brussel sprouts, and I am even tweaking the pumpkin pie a little. That's right, I'm a rebel with a cause.

Once the menu was finalized, I did the grocery shopping on Friday and Saturday last week. So between planning and shopping, we're up to about 4 hours of preparation.

Last night the actual cooking began. I made the cornbread for the stuffing so that it would have enough time to get nice and dry and stale. I actually made double cornbread because I knew that if I filled the house with the aroma of hot cornbread and then told the natives they couldn't eat any, I would have a mutiny on my hands.

It was hard work getting them to leave the second half alone, but boy aren't they going to be grateful when they see this beautiful stuff in its second life on our Thanksgiving table.

So by the end of Sunday, the preparation count is at 5 1/2 hours. No one has cried yet.