Michel Boucher said:Usually, in preparation for Emmanuelmas dinner, I am harried and
exhausted. Things are not times properly and so everything gets
rushed and I run out of space. This year, it all got done, we sat
down and ate and everything went fine.
Our Christmas dinner turned out great. The only problem was my wife's
last minute hissy fit, which served to reinforce my rule about not
allowing her into the kitchen when I am cooking. She does a wonderful
job of salads and table setting, and she is capable of making a meal for
us, but she gets frazzled under the pressure of cooking for a crowd. That
shouldn't be a problem if I look after the cooking.
She picked up the turkey on Saturday afternoon. It was a 15 lb. bird.
According to my cooking chart, it would take 5 1/4 hours at 325. I got
up at 9 am and prepared the stuffing, crammed it into the bird so that it
was all set to go into the oven at noon with the intention of being ready
to come out at 5:15 and sit while I prepared the rest. My mother brought
a casserole that needed 40 minutes at a higher heat. I had potatoes and
turnip peeled, cut and sitting in pots of water ready to go. She had made
a salad that needed to sit in the fridge for 4 hours and we had a bag of
salad that just needed some sliced onion and tomato.
At 5:00 I turned on the burners under the potatoes and the turnip. At
5:15 I pulled the turkey out. It looked great. I pulled on a leg and it
came apart. It was done. My son tasted a piece of turkey that fell off
and pronounced it to be perfect. My wife was horrified. She thought I
took it out an hour early and thought everything was off schedule. I was
convinced everything was running smoothly, except her increasing anxiety.
She was running around in circles and complaining that I had thrown off
her timing. My son and I were wondering what schedule, since I was aiming
for 6 pm dinner, and everything is going to be ready in time. There I was
preparing gravy, mashing spuds, mashing turnip, casserole is cooking. My
son opened up the bag off salad, added onion and tomato, dressed it, took
it to the table. He took out the other salad, retrieved serving dishes.
I put everything in the serving dishes and we took them out. My wife is
still running around fretting. We sat down, waited for her to stop
running around. I started curving the bird, which being perfectly cooked
and having sat for 45 minutes is carving beautifully. The stuffing was
good.
Everything was good. The only problem we had had was the hassle of her
frustration over nothing. But that is the reason that I do the cooking.
I learned a long time ago about timing, allotting prep time, cooking
time, a little time for contingencies. I am able to multi task enough to
cope with a dinner for 10. She can't. It's not a problem, but I have to
make sure that I keep her out of the kitchen. Her sister suggested that
next year we send her out to the store for something a half hour before
dinner :-)
