Thanksgiving has been an annually planned (extensively planned) affair for the past seven years of my life. Extensively planned in that I start planning in July, and yes, there is a binder.

The first binder was filled with recipes I pulled from NYT cooking, Bon Appetit Magazine (circa 2017 so pre-paywall era), Food & Wine, Guardian UK (Ottolenghi’s column – before they started publishing two recipes a week, instead of three), a calendar of my outfits for the long weekend, a two paged shopping list, and a color printed life-sized photo of a pint of Haagen-Daaz vanilla ice cream (for what reason, I do not know). Anyway, this first binderized Thanksgiving was, all things considered, kind of a flop. There was an inane amount of food in an overwhelming/clashing way, everything was good but nothing really beyond good, and I was definitely trying to please everyone with the potato varieties.  

It was also the first Thanksgiving following my living with Celeste, Dawg-o, and Marga which meant that the tradition of Aperó (read more about Apéro here) had been heavily cemented in my mind (and heart). My mom’s friend Erin made paper planes (a perfect choice, classic Erin), and while people munched and sipped I worked on the following: tiny hakurei turnips (and their tops) cooked in a deeply onion-y chicken broth with parm and garlicky bread crumbs; an orange salad with fennel, pink peppercorns, and mint; roasted honeynut squash with balsamic, ricotta salata, and chopped hazelnuts; mashed potatoes; stuffing with tomato and cannellini beans; turkey was – Drake quote incoming – the best I’ve ever had. I marinated the breasts in Buttermilk and salt (alla Samin Nostrat) and the legs were confited with chilies and garlic (alla Chris Morocco).

Over the course of the following four years I simplified. The binder has taken a new form: more like flavor combinations I scribble down in corners of pages in notebooks that I use for school, and then closer to early November, a Google Doc is started. I’ve now gotten the prep work figured out in a way that makes the whole process feel manageable and actually very fun. I make playlists for cooking. I go to the Union Square farmer’s market early the Wednesday before “the big day” which is always festive and such an exciting place to start. No two Thanksgivings are ever the same, and I learn how to make life easier for myself and tastier for all of us.

Food wise, it was a pretty rock-solid Thanksgiving. My approach after seven years seems to be as follows and tends to work quite well: mashed potatoes – will forever be a must. Turkey. A crispy salad. A cooked veg. A stuffing. And yes, Haagen-Daaz vanilla ice cream does make a continual appearance because it is the best. 

This particular Thanksgiving (Thanksgiving 2023) was a special one because it was hosted at my parent’s new apartment (great lighting, not captured in these photos… sorry….), and was full of friends and family as opposed to the usual 13 (who are equally as wonderful, this is a public platform) that had sat around the Thanksgiving table since 2017. It felt like this break in tradition that would allow me to go for it in a new way that deserved an equally innovative and new menu.