Christa DeMercurio
Get ready for Thanksgiving with Chef Cal and Christa DeMercurio and as they share their top tips for a stress-free holiday feast. This episode of “Cooking Like a Pro” focuses on meal planning, timing strategies, and essential hosting advice for Thanksgiving.
✨DOWNLOAD YOUR HOLIDAY PREP GUIDE ✨
- Explore themed variations for your Thanksgiving meal, including Italian, seafood, or Tex-Mex options.
- Holiday Prep Guide available for download at culinarilyyours.net.
- Essential decor and table setting tips, including the use of cloth napkins and unscented candles.
- Strategies for accommodating dietary needs and guest comfort.
- Detailed timeline for meal prep, from seven days out to Thanksgiving Day.
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Timestamp Overview
00:00 Switch it up with global cuisine.
05:59 Plan events around food serving time.
06:47 Prep in advance and manage cooking time wisely.
12:19 Chef’s job: balance tasting, not overstuffing diners.
14:25 Plan table settings and logistics ahead.
18:04 Prepare playlist; manage ambiance.
21:37 Consider all dietary needs when planning events.
23:05 Festivities begin when food and drinks are served.
27:27 Prepare for meal breakdown, organize packaging efficiently.
29:26 Timing and pacing Thanksgiving Day.
36:10 Ensure everything is on on hand when it’s needed.
Transcript
Christa DeMercurio:
Hey, food fans. Welcome to Cooking Like a Pro with Chef Cal and me, Mrs. Chef his wife, Christa DeMercurio. We’re dishing out culinary intuition, insights, and imagination to spice up your meals and make cooking more fun. On today’s episode, my chef husband and I discuss the ways to prepare for holiday feasts and how to pace yourself for pulling everything together on time, especially for Thanksgiving next week. Let’s dig in. Today’s episode was broadcast and recorded live on AM FM radio.
Chef Cal:
Welcome, welcome, welcome to Cooking Like a Pro. You have found us. This is chef Cal with Mrs. Chef Christa. And we are just happy to be here.
Christa DeMercurio:
Hello.
Chef Cal:
This is your Thanksgiving headquarters. You know, and I think that what. What we see out there is that a lot of people get intimidated because they’re not chefs. They’re not. Maybe they’re not even home cooks. And. But then you have that added. Let’s call it stress of having the family over.
Chef Cal:
And so you also have the stress of a larger group. You also have the stress of many more sides, which are traditional.
Christa DeMercurio:
And it’s stuff that you a lot of times, only make once a year, maybe twice a year.
Chef Cal:
Yeah.
Christa DeMercurio:
Something happened practicing all year.
Chef Cal:
But there are some fun things you can do. And this is one of the things that I like to think. Think about is how to mix it up so it’s not always the same. So maybe you want to do a Thanksgiving that’s inspired by the foods of Italy. Right. I mean, still, you can still do roast pork. You can do a nice risotto, maybe put some truffles in there with your cream and, you know, butternut squash or, you know, tiramisu or panna cotta. Instead of, you know, the old pumpkin pie, how about a seafood Thanksgiving? Follow that one.
Chef Cal:
Just a whole roasted fish. Branzino are great to roast whole, but so is a salmon. And then, you know, something a little lighter. I think sometimes we’re looking for something a little bit lighter. And, of course, crab, you know, season is. They keep putting it off. It’s my mother’s. My mom’s.
Chef Cal:
She’s not happy. She’s. Yeah, she’s.
Christa DeMercurio:
So when does crab season usually open? We’re talking, you know, cold water crab. But it’s not open yet this season.
Chef Cal:
No, mom told me that, and mom’s a crab person. Okay. Because we still go get our own crab when we got our own abalone and everything else.
Christa DeMercurio:
Well, not times. We’ll use it in shapino for making sure. At the end of the month.
Chef Cal:
Yep, yep. And That’s a holiday tradition and treat as well. But from what I understand, it’s actually been pushed off to the, to the beginning of next year. But how about Tex Mex Thanksgiving? Carnitas, enchiladas. And you know, you can even use butter squash. I mean, if you want to make it a, like an enchilada or with, you know, without meat, you know, butternut squash is a great sturdy vegetable you can use. And for that matter, if you want to do a vegetarian Thanksgiving, you know, stuffed acorn squash, it’s, you know, all those things that you would normally use that, you know, wild rice, which is the majority of the wild rice is grown right up here in Fall river in Northern California. But cranberries and nuts and things like that.
Chef Cal:
So, you know, there’s a lot of different directions you can go. It doesn’t have to just be the Thanksgiving. And I did have a friend call me and I know I’m hogging the time here, sweetheart, but he said, we have 35 people coming and I. And how do we do two turkeys? Because the revenue is only big enough for one. And you remember on a turkey, you’re going to get about, you know, a pound and a half is going to be a portion. So if you get a 20 pound turkey, that’s going to give you, you know, your, your 15 portions. But let’s say maybe you have 18 or 25 people coming. You can buy just a turkey breast and roast off a couple of those.
Chef Cal:
They’re going to cook a lot faster. And you can roast your turkey and then put the breast in a smaller pan maybe down underneath it. And those can. But they’re only going to take like 45 minutes. But, but that’s, that’s a great option. You can’t really go get dark meat.
Christa DeMercurio:
Okay, real quick, I did look up the crab season. And yes, it normally is open beginning of November, but they’re saying January.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, that’s what mom was saying. She’s pretty sad. Pretty sad.
Christa DeMercurio:
All right. Google confirmed it.
Chef Cal:
All right, so, okay, so what we have for you folks, and this is free. Okay, this is for. All you have to do is go to Culinary yours.
Christa DeMercurio:
Okay, everybody, right now, stop what you’re doing. Go to your computer, go to your phone, go to culinary yours.net at the very tip top, there’s a little red banner of something free. Free to download right now, right this second.
Chef Cal:
And you are going to want this. Even if you’re an accomplished chef, you’re going to want this. What this is, It’s a meal planning and prep toolkit. And how many Pages is this?
Christa DeMercurio:
10, like 6 or 7 anyway, but.
Chef Cal:
It’S got everything that you need for Thanksgiving and we’re going to be going through it and we use these for everything.
Christa DeMercurio:
Prep guide.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. You know, I mean, this planning guide is free. If you can go and download it now or just follow along the next segments that we have, we’re going to be covering it from front to back, and it’s really going to help relieve the stress of the holidays and hopefully help you be a little more organized and enjoy yourself a little bit more. So. Cooking like a pro. We’ll be back in just a moment. Welcome back. Welcome back.
Chef Cal:
Cooking like a pro. Chef Caland Chef Mrs. Chef Mrs. Chef Christa. So we’re going to go through, as we spoke about this meal plan and a prep, and this just doesn’t have to be for Thanksgiving. As we mentioned, it can be used for anything. But this will. It will.
Christa DeMercurio:
This is how a chef thinks. When we have a meal coming up, we walk through everything from beginning to end, end back to beginning to make sure everything is going to flow and the timing works.
Chef Cal:
And the reason to do this again is just to, you know, that, you know, it’s okay to have a little bit of anxiety and excitement about doing something, but don’t be worried about it and you certainly don’t want to be stressed, you know. So anyway, so the very first thing I always ask when I’m doing an event is what time food is being served, because you back up from there. That’s what we call the drop dead time. That’s the time everything has to be ready. And that’s where you start. So this will, it explains that. What time? The very first thing it says, what time is dinner going to be served? Because everything is built from that. And then the second thing to consider, and this answers the question that we had last week on how do I get everything to come up at the same time? And you do that by figuring out which of those items are going to be for that final stretch.
Chef Cal:
And these are items that are going to be prepped. Perhaps your green beans are blanched, so they’re three quarter cooked, and all you have to do is season them and bring them up to temperature. So that’s going to go in that last minute thing while your turkey is sitting out, maybe your yams and your, you know, whatever else is going into the, into the oven, you know, if you’re doing like a green bean casserole or something like that. So Figure out which of those items are going to be at the final stretch, and then just set your pace and time yourself to where you give yourself plenty of time. I think that’s really the big thing is people aren’t cognizant of the fact that, you know, okay, where am I at here? And then they feel like they’re running.
Christa DeMercurio:
Behind and don’t do everything the day of.
Chef Cal:
Very.
Christa DeMercurio:
Do not do the day of.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, actually, this here starts about four days, I think. Is it four days before?
Christa DeMercurio:
Well, the last page is Thanksgiving, and it starts a week out. And it starts all the way from white, right?
Chef Cal:
Yeah, yeah. Because that. You got to get your turkey and you got to thaw it out.
Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah, that’s. That’s the big meal. But, you know, most things, you’re going to start three days out.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. And if you get something frozen, no problem. Go grab it a week out, throw it in your fridge, let it thaw out slowly. Anytime you can thaw your food out slowly, you are dramatically, dramatically increasing the flavor of it. And I can give you a couple of examples. But it’s just like, you know, thawing out shrimp underwater, what is all that water going down the drain? Tastes like. It tastes like shrimp. There’s been a flavor transfer out of your protein and into the.
Chef Cal:
Into the. Into the waste. Same thing with anything else you’re thawing underwater. So you don’t want to thaw things with running water. Certainly that happens, you know, when you’re in the restaurant business. We call, like when you’re in the weeds, and you just gotta. Okay. But I get something thought out quickly.
Christa DeMercurio:
And so, like, shrimp, you know, for turkeys, like, five days out. Shrimp, you could probably do the day before.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, day before. It’s not. It depends on.
Christa DeMercurio:
Not as big, not as much.
Chef Cal:
It depends on how it’s packed also, because some things are packed in blocks, and then some things would be packed, you know, loose. They use the term iqf?
Christa DeMercurio:
Yep.
Chef Cal:
Iqf. What does it stand for? Oh, individually.
Christa DeMercurio:
Individually Quick frozen.
Chef Cal:
There you go. Individually Quick frozen.
Christa DeMercurio:
You gotta prep me on these things.
Chef Cal:
Come on. Anyway, start planning ahead, you know, create your menu. Also consider. What are we going to delegate? You know, the chef runs the kitchen, but the chef doesn’t prepare all the food. I mean, I guess if you’re just a lunatic chef or you’re maybe fairly insecure, I don’t know. I mean, I prepped a lot of food, but I mean, I always had staffs. You know, I say, okay, I’m not going to go running Back and forth, making pumpkin pie when I’m trying to, you know, knock out, you know, turkey and gravy and, you know, the important things.
Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah, you can. But if you’ve got people to help use them. You need to have help.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. So you lower your stress level. So you’re going to delegate and you’re also going to be working across multiple days. As Mrs. Chef mentioned, this here has a page that you can again, download for free that will tell you everything you need to cook and when you need to cook it. Not only that, it also includes a grocery list. It’s got a blank grocery list that you can transfer whatever you want. You need cranberries, go ahead and get them.
Chef Cal:
If you’re going to be doing a pomegranate, you know, relish instead of cranberry relish, whatever it is that you need that, you know, you can do ahead of time, go ahead and put that on your grocery list. It’s one of the downloads that’s on here. And then just, again, just cruise right through it.
Christa DeMercurio:
I think what’s important is to do a doable menu. Don’t go doing new things that you haven’t tried before. Don’t do things that are too extravagant, too detailed. Do things that you’re comfortable with.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, that’s a great point. Because, you know, when I want to do. Do something really, really nice, I try to. I make sure that I’m not going to make mistakes on it. So I do do it ahead of time. We used to always call it in the actual chef world, we called it making a pitcher plate. And if we’re. Every time we do a banquet, we would have a plate, a completed plate done well in advance.
Chef Cal:
So everyone that was, you know, on the line running that plate down, there was six or seven people. Everyone knew exactly where things went, and that all went by the clock. We actually have that, a clock that we’ve been working on getting folks to.
Christa DeMercurio:
Be, I think in the vegetable guide.
Chef Cal:
Vegetable guide? Yeah, because you always look at the clock as your timing guide, and you look at the clock as just one through 12. You know, if it goes on the plate, at the very top, middle of the plate, it’s a 12 o’clock. You know, your. Your protein, which is normally going to be close, it would be closest to the guest. Correct. Right at 6 o’clock, right down in front of their belly, you know, and then. And there’s. However you want to build things there.
Chef Cal:
There are lots of other considerations. The thing about Thanksgiving is mostly it’s just, it’s Basque style, or they call it Russian style service. It’s just. Yeah, it’s family style. Yeah, yeah, it’s just. Just all there. You just grab what you want.
Christa DeMercurio:
Family style.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, well, that we call family style, but it bask. Have you ever been to a Basque restaurant?
Christa DeMercurio:
No.
Chef Cal:
Basque restaurant?
Christa DeMercurio:
Nope.
Chef Cal:
We’ll have to do that. Basque restaurant. It’s basically platter service. Everything goes in the platter. Kind of like the, our favorite show, Blue Bloods, they have their dinner, it’s always a platter style. The food’s there and then you just pass it around.
Christa DeMercurio:
And as opposed to a plated service where everything is pre plated and brought to the table.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, well. And people might well say, you don’t know if you want dark meat or white meat or you don’t know how much of this you want or how much, much of that you want. So, yeah, I think that it’s. It’s a good thing. One of the challenges is I always want to taste everything and sometimes remember a meal, folks, it runs around 35 to 36 bites of food. So that’s how we break it down in the restaurant business. If there’s a salad involved or a soup or, you know, a protein, a main course, a vegetable, a starch, a dessert, that’s one of the things if you. The job of the chef is not to stuff people.
Chef Cal:
You don’t want the thought of them feeling uncomfortable, with the exception of probably Thanksgiving, but they’ll wait for the pie until after the football game’s over or something. But the job of a chef is to fill people, not to stuff them, because I don’t want the last thing they fill is being uncomfortable because they have to unbutton their pants.
Christa DeMercurio:
Okay, here’s an important point. If you’re doing everybody getting their own food, put smaller spoons in the dishes because the bigger the spoon, the bigger the scoop.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, yeah, a spoon is a scoop. Okay? So, yeah, I’ve. I’ve come across that many times in the past.
Christa DeMercurio:
So for me, when I do Thanksgiving, because we’ve got 15, 16 items, sometimes because we’re doing potluck, I’ll take like a tablespoon of each and do it all the way, like a palate on my plate. I don’t do a big old full on scoop like you normally would at a regular meal.
Chef Cal:
And also eat fast. Remember, it takes your brain about 20 minutes. Your stomach takes your stomach about 20 minutes to tell your brain you’re full. So if you eat really fast, you might get 50 bites in before you’re. Oh. But anyway, 35, 36 bites is what’s considered a normal.
Christa DeMercurio:
So kind of including dessert, kind of.
Chef Cal:
Pace that out for the entire meal. Yeah. So a lot of restaurants don’t serve very many desserts because you’re full by the time. Not only has it already been 20 minutes, you’re full. You’ve had your, you know, your allotment of swallows. And as much as you want to have dessert, it just. It’s. It’s painful.
Chef Cal:
It’s painful to think about. But that’s why, you know, desserts good next day too. But table coordination, now that. Now that’s something you can get done ahead of time. Are you going to have a runner? What type of china are you going to use? Or plateware or flatware? Is everything going to be throw it in the garbage or we’ve really pulling it out, you know, grandma’s nice china. So figure. Figure out what you’re gonna do. Centerpieces, placemats, anything that you can think of.
Chef Cal:
Get that done ahead of time. And I’ll be honest, I’m gonna let Christa speak to this because she’s like a. I mean, some days I come home and I don’t even know I’m in the same home because all of a sudden, you know, spring shows up and it’s just.
Christa DeMercurio:
Did you notice Christmas showed up last week?
Chef Cal:
I noticed it’s starting to show.
Christa DeMercurio:
Yes. Christmas is starting to show up in our house. But, yeah, you want to. This can be done easily a week, even two weeks out. Making sure you’ve got all your china ready, washed your dishes, your silverware, your glasses, all that kind of stuff can be prepared so much further in advance.
Chef Cal:
You’ve got so many talents, but you’ve done a lot of floral. And what advice would you give to people that are either calling down to a florist to get something or they’re going to make something for the center table. Because a little floral decoration I think is good.
Christa DeMercurio:
Makes sense, unfortunately, because I love tall, dramatic arrangements when you walk into a room. But unless you don’t want to see the person sitting across from you, you need to keep it low, nice and low, and sometimes even long. If you have a long table, you can do low and long.
Chef Cal:
I hate that when I go to a restaurant, there’s this thing that’s blocking the person next to you. I just take it and move it off the table.
Christa DeMercurio:
Well, sometimes you don’t even need to have a traditional centerpiece. You could have little settings at each particular Place setting. So you could have your place card and a candle and maybe a little floral arrangement. It doesn’t have to be something big and gigantic in the table.
Chef Cal:
And you can also put that dessert fork away, you know, up around 12 o’clock on the plate, but just off the plate, but up at 12 o’clock. And then maybe you also put a dessert, a coffee cup up there. I mean, so the stuff that they’re not going to need, go and put it in front of them. But, but that way they don’t have to get cluttered. And you know, I don’t know, it’s, I’ve been to enough restaurants in my, my day where there was, you know, an 18 course meal and every course had a different silverware and you don’t.
Christa DeMercurio:
Have to preset the entire table. You could have a dessert station on a different little card table off to the side. It’s got all the dessert plates, the dessert forks, your coffee cups, and it’s ready to go, but it’s not there in the middle of the table all night long.
Chef Cal:
Good point, Good point. So I have that tableware coordinated and when we get back, I want to talk about something else that’s that I think is really, really important that a lot of people overlook. So we will give you that information. We can come back in just a moment. And you have found us here again, cooking Like a Pro. Back in just a moment. Welcome back. Welcome back to Chef Cal and Mrs.
Chef Cal:
Chef Christa. Cooking like a Pro. And what I mentioned going into the last break was some of these things we don’t always think about. And again, this is great information. Please tell them where they can get it.
Christa DeMercurio:
Again, go to culinary yours.net at the very tip top of the page in the red bar you can click on Getting the guide and get a quick, easy download.
Chef Cal:
Free. Free for free. Doesn’t cost a dime.
Christa DeMercurio:
Free. Free for free. Free. Free.
Chef Cal:
Just for the paper you want to print, if you want to print it, which I would, because then you can use it to write on. Because again, like I mentioned that there’s also a list in here for your grocery shopping. But, but music and ambiance and this is something you can completely set up ahead of time. Get yourself a playlist that matches the mood or the audience that’s going to be there. Something maybe something old, something jazzy with holiday tunes. I know Christmas music. Sometimes, I don’t know, you don’t want to get family arguments, but Son of Christmas music starts the day after.
Christa DeMercurio:
Or you can bring up the Hallmark Channel that’s got the fireplace with the kitties and the puppies in the background.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. But we’re watching the football game, so a playlist, something along again. Basically, what we’re looking at here is your ambiance. Okay. In the restaurant, we used to do that. I remember Demonicurios because I wanted to smell like food. So I would saute up some onions and bell peppers about two minutes before 5:00 when we opened. Big.
Chef Cal:
Nothing smells better than mushrooms or onions and bell peppers. When you saw Tam, I saute him up with a little bit of garlic and then I would just bring the pan. I just walk around the dining room two or three times, and as soon as people open that door, it was just wham. Yeah. So. So you all, you know, you smell the turkeys. But along with that playlist, things like lighting. Are you going to have candles? Are you going to have overhead lighting? Can you dim it? You want.
Chef Cal:
Remember, you want. You want an ambiance that’s warm and inviting.
Christa DeMercurio:
Okay. Here’s something I do before anybody comes over is I go on and turn a light on a table lamp in every single room. Because if you walk into a cold, dark house, it is not inviting. So that’s when your electricity bills and go up just a little bit because of some extra lighting. But it helps create that welcoming environment for people to come into.
Chef Cal:
And another thing, napkin rings. And I bring that up because, really, cloth napkins. Get some cloth napkins or get some really nice, you know, paper napkins that are going to make it through an entire meal. Because, you know, Thanksgiving is clumsy. It’s a clumsy meal. You know, you got all kinds of gravy dripping and cranberry sauce and globin and, you know, who knows? So anyway, so the decor. So again, playlist lighting and. And the decor, again, we mentioned centerpieces.
Chef Cal:
Garland’s a good one. And a lot of times I think people will pull out the holidays the stuff as well. But.
Christa DeMercurio:
And also, if you are doing candles. Unscented.
Chef Cal:
Candles unscented. Very much. Good, good point.
Christa DeMercurio:
You do not want to clash with the food.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, that’s why you said we have to. I had one particular server. I’ve had several in the past, but they smell like they bathed in cologne.
Christa DeMercurio:
That’s another thing. Don’t wear perfume and cologne.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. And it’s like, whoa. I want to, like, get the aroma of the wine. And I can, you know, I literally knew when this particular server was showing up before I seen them. Serious. Yep. So and so is here I can smell them. Guest comfort.
Chef Cal:
Here’s a list of things. Again, this is all free. You can download it, please. Do you have the. Whether there’s invitations or whatever the communication is going to be. I know right now that so often for many of our events we use those things online where people can sign up. What are those called?
Christa DeMercurio:
Evites.
Chef Cal:
Evites. And imagine there’s probably a problem.
Christa DeMercurio:
Text even.
Chef Cal:
So, yeah, you know, your invitation. So you know how many people come in, give or take, and let them.
Christa DeMercurio:
Know if it’s casual or a little more dressed up or, you know, if your house is going to be warm, maybe they shouldn’t be wearing a wool sweater.
Chef Cal:
Dietary and nutritional concerns is one that I always think of when I do an event. Because, you know, if you’re doing an event for maybe a couple hundred people or a larger number of a group of people, then you have a couple people that are allergic to this or, you know, they. Maybe they just flat don’t like something or maybe they, you know, it’s a celiac. Maybe the gluten is going to get them. So make sure that if they’re are any, you know, for example, seeds in anything, let everyone know that there’s seeds for anyone that might have a problem with, you know, I don’t know if they’re older or something like diverticulitis or something like that. I mean, there’s. There’s a lot of things that you just want to be careful what you eat.
Christa DeMercurio:
I suggest something. I just saw Trader Joe’s the other day. You know me, I love Trader Joe’s. I got this from my mom. If somebody is vegan, vegetarian, they have a butternut squash lasagna that looks. I got that. I haven’t tried it.
Chef Cal:
Thank you for not saying you. They have a turkey in a tofu turkey.
Christa DeMercurio:
No, but molded. And if you need an emergency backup vegetarian dish, they do have one there. It’s butternut squash lasagna. I thought that’s interesting to have on hand.
Chef Cal:
Okay, so anyway, so the timing again, we talked about that when we were back earlier about, you know, everything being.
Christa DeMercurio:
Coordinated to let people know when to expect we’re going to eat. You know, arrival time. If you’re going to have some amuse bouche, some appetizers, drinks beforehand.
Chef Cal:
Oh, come on. You can’t say a moose bouche without telling people what it is.
Christa DeMercurio:
Bouche. You’re going to amuse the mouth.
Chef Cal:
Okay. Just say a durvre or a pea sound or a bite size something. Bite size something they can whet their appetite. Remember, festivities start when food starts flowing. I can’t tell you over the decades, I’ve seen people sitting in chairs across from one another and they’re staring at one another. An older cup. Nothing happens till the bread gets there or the soup gets there or the beverages get there. It’s just something that, you know, they have something and you know, a festive drink of some sort, whether, you know, alcoholic or non alcoholic.
Chef Cal:
There’s a lot of really nice punches that you can make. I know we used to make that one with sherbet. I can’t remember. This is like Rainbow sherbet and 7Up or something.
Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah, rainbow sherbet, I think. Cranberry juice, Orange juice.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. Well, now my, my grandpa’s no longer with us, so I can say this, that he was making us grasshoppers when we were still knee high to a grasshopper. So grasshoppers was always a family tradition. And it’s just your, your. It’s a great drink. It really is. It’s. It’s cream to mint, which is green cream to mint.
Chef Cal:
They have white, but you want green cream to mint, white cream to cocoa. And then just half and half and ice and just blend it and it’s really good. It’s really good.
Christa DeMercurio:
The minty slushy.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, yeah. And. And they may have wanted the kids to go to sleep, I don’t know.
Christa DeMercurio:
But anyway, have like nuts and olives and crackers things, little nibbles to appease appetites before the main meal comes about.
Chef Cal:
And here’s one did where you think of this, folks, because again, it’s on this list that you can get for free. Where are you going to put the guest coats? Where are you going to put the bags? Is there a place? You know, because if it’s the weather’s anything like it, you know, if it’s.
Christa DeMercurio:
Inclement, it’s raining squirrels and monkeys here right now.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. So want to make sure that you, you know, you have something for that, a designated place they can put something. The temperature 72 degrees. You have a thermometer, I mean a thermostat that’s like the perfect temperature.
Christa DeMercurio:
And then also the more people that show up and the more cooking that’s going on, that’s going to increase the temperature. So you might want to start a little bit lower. And as people come in, it will.
Chef Cal:
Warm up and you do. And most, very few ovens that I’ve ever seen do not have some sort of a venting system. We call it a hood. Make sure the hood’s on, you know, pulling some of that. Some of those. The high temperature out. I mean, the hoods in a restaurant are ginormous. I mean, they’re like as big as the garage.
Chef Cal:
Okay. So very upon your house.
Christa DeMercurio:
I mean, some places we’ve actually cracked the windows a little bit just to get some ventilation and cooling, because it does to get so warm.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. So seating. And just think about, you know, one thing that’s kind of, I don’t know, for a Thanksgiving, but, you know, it’s always nice to kind of take a break. I like when I’ve gone to restaurants and, you know, you eat for maybe an hour, hour and a half, and then you can kind of get up and walk around outside and through the rose garden or through, you know, or something like through the kitchen. We’ve been blessed. I’ve been to a couple of those places. So, you know, you can take a break. Just, you know, just say, got to kind of do what people enjoy.
Chef Cal:
So the kitchen tools, equipment, make sure you have those. Those are all written down here. Wonderful. I mean, from your serving spoons and your dishes, make sure you have your extra kitchen space. Make as much room as you can in your refrigerator for people that are bringing foods over beforehand. Make sure your table is big enough, chairs.
Christa DeMercurio:
Now, if you don’t have enough refrigerator space, you can have ice chests filled with ice ready to go. Little baby refrigerators on hand for you. So they can bring over their salads or their pies.
Chef Cal:
It’s cold outside. You know, you can.
Christa DeMercurio:
If it’s cold outside, yeah, you can put them out in the garage. But if you don’t have that opportunity, just make your own little refrigerator just using an ice chest.
Chef Cal:
Okay. And then cleanup and logistics. You know, to have a strategy for dishes. You know, we’re going to scrape everything in Fido’s dish, wherever it’s going, all the plates are going to be stacked. There’s going to be a hot water thing sitting in there that I can put all my silverware in. So just be ready. You know, make sure your dishwasher is empty. If you have a dishwasher, unless your dishwasher is named Chef Cow.
Chef Cal:
But, you know, be ready. So the breakdown of the meal, you know, doesn’t cause any challenges. You know, everyone kind of just kind of just jumps in and does it. And then, of course, a big part of that, not just, you know, trash and, of course, recycle, but leftover packaging. You know, have some plastic bags, have some Tupperware, get some in, go to the dollar store and get yourself like 10 bucks worth of Tupperware and you’re good, you know, and maybe different like stupid where that has several compartments to it. So you can, you know, give them a little bit of everything. It depends. You can go get yourself some styrofoam containers.
Chef Cal:
But I mean, you know, you can.
Christa DeMercurio:
Get inexpensive take and toss stuff. Usually most grocery stores, those ones that we get with the little blue lids, you can get a bunch of those and you know, and then it’s kind of a get a take home gift because they can continue to reuse them but they didn’t cost an arm and a leg.
Chef Cal:
So. So anyway, again, culinarily yours.net.net and then there’s a banner, what color you said you just click on that. Download this. We’re going to be back in just a second. We’re going to give you the piece de resistance, the of the last of this meal prep guide to help you for your holidays.
Christa DeMercurio:
Lamb, rams, hogs, dogs, chicken, turkeys.
Chef Cal:
Welcome back to cooking Like a Pro. We appreciate you tuning in again and listening back to this, this planning guide, folks, again for the holiday season, especially next week with Thanksgiving coming up.
Christa DeMercurio:
We are one week out, people. One week out.
Chef Cal:
We have a beverage service information on there. Again, we mentioned the grocery list. There is information there on choosing the right wine. I don’t want to go into that. This is really where I wanted to camp. Okay. This is, it’s, it’s a really great, great tool. And this tool, you need to I print it today because you’re going to start using it tomorrow.
Christa DeMercurio:
Even if you don’t use the rest of the tools in the toolkit. This is the one that you need.
Chef Cal:
And it’s going to start you off. It’s just you’re finalizing your menu, maybe even who’s responsible for what. Write out your shopping list, which we are providing for you. Clean out your fridge to make room as you go through this week. Organize your pantry, you know, reviewing what’s got on hand and where you can make space. But also if you already have, you know, a can of yams and you don’t need to go and buy, buy another one. So that’s all you do on Thursday. Okay, now what are they going to do on Friday?
Christa DeMercurio:
On Friday, because you now know what you need to go buy because you filled out your shopping list and you got your fridge and your pantry ready, you are going to go shopping, head to the grocery store first thing in the morning before the crowds, before the food disappears. And start stocking up.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. Or even late at night. I just. Not when everyone else is there. I mean, I’ve gone shopping at 2 in the morning. I mean, you go to a place like, you know, whatever, Winco, something that’s open, you know, all the time, but, you know, get.
Christa DeMercurio:
Get through hours, start restocking throughout the day, all day long.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. So, you know, if you. If you’re going to go grab something, you grab it. You know, again, just times when the crowd’s not there, which of course is generally early morning or later in the evening. And then on the next day, Saturday, which is. That’s this coming Saturday, you’re going to move the turkey from your freezer to your refrigerator and slowly defrost that. You want that to defrost for days, not hours. Days, three to four days, it depends.
Chef Cal:
I have to give you a variety simply because I don’t know how cold your refrigerator is. But, you know, three to four to even five days, or you can tell just by touching it, if your fingers give, then you’re ready. And then. And this is also a good time to. For some of that. Like if you need extra tables or chairs, it’s a great time to get those and just have them on hand. Maybe sit on the back porch or something.
Christa DeMercurio:
Other friends to bring things over and, you know, extra card tables, extra folding chairs, things like that.
Chef Cal:
Well, you need a kids table. Right.
Christa DeMercurio:
I think that’s the only guys.
Chef Cal:
Is that the old. We always had a kids table. It was a big thing in our family when you graduated up from the. To the big people table and you weren’t on the little people table.
Christa DeMercurio:
So I remember my nannies, we had. There was a round table in the kitchen just off the dining room, and all the kids got to eat in there. We had our own little personal dining room while all the adults were in the big dining room.
Chef Cal:
Well, see, that’s a great way to look at it. Okay, so that was Saturday. So now Sunday, we’re going to gather up our linen, our napkins, centerpieces, wash and iron, anything. So you’re not doing that this, you know, a day or two before. Make sure you got all your plates and glassware, basically everything that would. That would fall into the definition of tableware, everything on the table. So. Okay, so now we’re on Monday, The Monday before Thanksgiving.
Chef Cal:
This coming Monday. What are we doing on Monday, Hunter?
Christa DeMercurio:
I think we can get that cranberry sauce going.
Chef Cal:
Yes.
Christa DeMercurio:
Any salad dressings, Chilled desserts? If you’re making compound butters for the turkey, honey butter for your rolls, Anything that’s going to be prepared and kept cold.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. And everything on there are all items that have a shelf life of, you know, a week, if not more, you know, some of it several weeks, like compound butters and even salad dressing. So you can make those, get them out of your way, whatever it is you’re going to do. Then on Tuesday, you’re going to season your turkey. By now, your turkey should be thawed out. You can do a wet brine if you want to add some seasoning and flavorings to it. You can do a dry brine, which is the same thing, except you’re just rubbing it on there. It’s not actually being immersed in liquid.
Chef Cal:
You don’t have to brine a turkey. The only thing I would recommend. I wouldn’t brine the turkey if I knew I was going to use a compound butter, because that compound butter is going to go underneath the skin and it’s going to add so much flavor that I don’t even know if the brine would take much. But you can, you know, if it’s a dry brine inside of the cavity, and that would depend on whether you’re going to stuff it or not. So.
Christa DeMercurio:
Well, can you. If you do do an actual brine, wet or dry, can you still put the. Just a straight butter in there underneath the skin?
Chef Cal:
Flavor, Flavor. Butter. Yeah, that’s the three. The three most important French ingredients are what? Christa?
Christa DeMercurio:
Butter. Butter. Butter.
Chef Cal:
There you go. Butter, butter, butter. You can make your pie dough. You’re a couple days out. That’s going to be fine in there. You can even peel and blanch your sweet potatoes. If you’re going to make a bread dough that’s going to be yeast, I’d probably save that for Wednesday. But, you know, you want your dough to have that extra day.
Christa DeMercurio:
No more than two days out. Two days is fine. It will develop more flavor and you’ll usually do it just a little bit less yeast because it does have that time to do that. But if your Wednesday is going to be packed, just go ahead and do it on Tuesday. You can even freeze it and then just defrost it the next day.
Chef Cal:
Okay, so we’re going to roll through this in our last four minutes. We have Wednesday, which is cut and prep your vegetables. Remove the turkey from the brine, pat it, pat it dry. You can use, like, paper towels on that. Make your dressings, make your pies, desserts. Chill your beverages. Find out what beverages you’re going to want. Arrange the seating, arrange the flowers, the final decor, have breakfast and lunch.
Chef Cal:
Well, you probably, I don’t know if you’re going to have lunch. Depends on what time you eat Thanksgiving. We usually eat Thanksgiving at like noon, so it depends. But if you’re going to have something to eat, maybe just have a simple breakfast item that you can, that you can snack or maybe something you can put.
Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah. Because you don’t want to wait till 5 o’clock and then have not eaten or drank anything all day long.
Chef Cal:
Well, also, if you’re in the kitchen, you’re eating the whole time you’re. Because you’re tasting. And you know, if you’re tasting, then, you know, by the time dinner rolls around, maybe you’re already full. But anyway, so we’re on the day before still. But you know, stay hydrated, get some rest, get to bed early. Generally, Thanksgiving is a fairly early day for me. It always started at 2 in the morning. When I was in restaurants, I used to just absolutely love it.
Chef Cal:
There’s no one out at 2 in the morning. It’s just, it is quiet.
Christa DeMercurio:
What time did you go to sleep?
Chef Cal:
Oh, we didn’t go to sleep. And then Thursday. Okay, so Thursday is Thanksgiving, so I’ll let you start on that one. And the way she’s got it broken down here is there’s what you do. Eight hours ahead, one hour ahead, 30 minutes ahead, 10 minutes ahead. And then after the meal, so remember, everything starts at that meal time.
Christa DeMercurio:
So whatever your time is, start backing it up. You’re going to need the time that it’s going to take to cook the turkey. You need the time it’s going to take to rest the turkey. It’s going to take the time to pull the turkey from the fridge and let it set out before you bake it. And then you’ve got to get everything ready even up to eight hours earlier and get that oven on. The oven is pretty much going to be on all day.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. And hopefully you have the right racks you need, especially if you’re roasting a turkey and like I mentioned earlier, roasting some breasts. You know, if you were going to put the yams in there to get a little color on those or. And your mashed potatoes are generally going to be up on top. And now we’re down to one hour out. So we’re going to pull our Turkey out at 155 and allow that to continue on. And then we’re going to take that stock and all those drippings. We’re going to make our gravy so that’s going to be.
Chef Cal:
That’s critiCaltime there, kind of when.
Christa DeMercurio:
You start kicking things into high gear.
Chef Cal:
Exactly.
Christa DeMercurio:
Everything’s prepped now. It’s like, okay, it’s go time.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. But you’re way ahead because you’ve been doing all this stuff all week before. So you’re going to do your. Put your rolls in the oven, get those done, because those can sit for a while, and then assemble your appetizers. And now you’re on 30 minutes out. What are we doing at 30 minutes out?
Christa DeMercurio:
Everybody’s gonna start showing up, get the candles on, turn on the music, and have your drinks ready to. When they arrive in the little appetizers, they walk in the door.
Chef Cal:
Okay. Yeah. Well, the only thing I would change on that is I don’t know how often everyone in our family’s on time. Well, that’s why, including me starting a.
Christa DeMercurio:
Half hour out, that half hour is kind of that window where things just start happening.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. And then. And then. So you’re ready to go. You dress and toss your salads. You. You cut your. Your turkey or carve your turkey.
Chef Cal:
It’s really easy. Just take the breast off the top of it, the thigh and the leg. You can generally pull off with your hands. If you’ve got some gloves, latex gloves, rather. Again, anything that’s chilled can be pulled out. Your rolls are all ready to go. Dish those up, transfer everything onto your serving dishes, and boom, you’re ready to go. And then after the meal, you just want to store and cool down those leftovers.
Chef Cal:
Label containers for guests to take home, relax and enjoy. So, folks, this is an amazing, completely free meal planning and prep toolkit.
Christa DeMercurio:
Go to culinarilyyours.net click on it across the top to get the guide. Now. Thank you so much for spending time with us. Until next time, we hope you’ll be cooking up a storm in the kitchen. So we’ll be with you again next week with food, flavor and fun right here on Cooking Like a Pro Podcast.
