Clean up
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First, I must apologize. Last week I implied that your local grocery store was likely full of fall festivity and then I went shopping myself to discover, of course, that the world has already moved on to Yuletide and peppermint. How silly of me.
It’s the calm before the storm. Since it’s still a little too early to start cooking, it’s the perfect time to get the house in shape, which is the focus of this our penultimate time together (or is it??).
Things you must do this week
- Make sure everyone knows what they’re bringing. If your guests are either expected to bring a dish or are pestering you about what they can bring, now’s the time to make sure everyone knows. At the very least, this will prevent three different versions of dressing but no Brussels sprouts. And don’t hesitate to send along recipe suggestions, especially if grandma’s boyfriend has already started hyping up his venison jerky appetizer.
- Clean the house. We’ll go over the specifics for the kitchen below, but if you’re hosting, this is the week to do the deep cleaning. Vacuum everything — baseboards, AC vents, and curtains included — and dust every flat surface. Bathrooms should sparkle. You’ll need to give everything a once over on Thanksgiving Eve, but that should be quick.
- Double check your menu and ingredients. You’ve hopefully either safely executed your first shopping trip or are planning to soon. Double check your menu and ingredients and make sure you’ve either checked them off or they’re accounted for.
Things you should do this week
- Iron the linens. You’ve hauled the box labeled “THNKSGV” up from the basement and polished the candlestick holders, be sure to take some time to iron the linens. This one’s a bit of a Catch-22 because once you iron it you’ll likely need to fold it up to get it out of the way again, but the last thing you want to do is have to deal with a hot iron on Thanksgiving morning.
- Plan some meals that aren’t Thanksgiving. Whenever I have a big cooking project, I will often get so fixated I’ll forget there are other meals that need to be consumed (this happens less now that I have children who depend on me to survive). Plan some simple meals that are also categorically different from the big traditions. I like to do a pan pizza that everyone can help top, my pal Neven has an excellent recipe. Don’t forget breakfast, especially for the big day; don’t go too crazy, you can stick with oatmeal or yogurt and then shoo everyone out of the kitchen.
Things you might consider doing this week.
- Freeze ahead. Ok, fine, some of us are ready to start cooking. Things that freeze well: biscuits, pie dough (recipe coming this week for Premium subscribers), stock.
- Check your guest accommodations. Assuming you are hosting and there will be people arriving from out of town, make sure you’ve got the air mattress, extra towels, clean sheets all ready to go. This will give you a little time for any last minute orders should you be missing anything.
If you’ve spent any time in the kitchen or reading cookbooks or watching cooking television, you’ve no doubt encountered the phrase mise en place. As I understand it, the direct French translation is “putting in place” but I like to think of one’s meez as a state of mind, a sort of creed. At it’s most basic, this means gathering all of your equipment and ingredients and reading the recipe through before you light the burner, but we can expand this even further. And that means starting with a clean kitchen.
I would start with the refrigerator. My fridge is often filled with all sorts of murky liquids and ongoing projects of varying levels of ambition. Now is the time to make some hard choices if you hope to have enough space for everything. Are you still living the #sourdoughlyfe or has the starter you cheekily named Theseus been untouched in a dark corner since March? Will you actually be reusing that frying oil from that time you decided to make doughnuts? That woody stalk of lemongrass from this summer’s epic bánh mì experiments is almost certainly as flavorful as a toothpick now. The case of La Croix doesn't need to be in the fridge at all. I’m not here to tell you right from wrong, but this season of thankfulness can include letting go.
Next is the oven. I know you’re about to put it through its paces, but a clean oven will not only feel good, it will actually cook more evenly and make your food tastier. Thankfully, this one’s usually pretty easy but it can be intense: your oven’s self cleaning function. No, it doesn’t unleash an army of nanobots that scrub everything down (how I imagined this function worked when I was ten years old), it gets your oven super hot to literally incinerate all the caked on grease and food and then you just wipe out the ash. The downside here is your oven is unusable for a few hours, your kitchen will get quite hot and smoky and often rancid smelling, so best to do it soon. Remember to remove the metal racks and scrub those down by hand.
Put away any of the non-essential detritus that piles up on the countertops, even if just temporarily. Give everything a good scrub. Descale the coffee pot. Empty the crumb tray from the toaster — all the stuff that you’re supposed to do every month or so but keep pushing down the todo list. Thanksgiving is the perfect excuse to get your kitchen in shape, especially if it’s been neglected during the busy fall.
I tend to sharpen my knives every few weeks, if that’s not a habit you’ve formed, definitely get them sharp now. A dull knife is both unsafe and just a drag to use. There are almost certainly places in town that will do this for you fairly cheaply, I never want to be without my knives for a full day though. Electric sharpeners do a great job and are a solid investment. I use wet stones because I just mostly like having the time to quietly contemplate one of the few tools I use daily that doesn’t have a screen or a microprocessor.
If you are feeling really ambitious, you can scrub the pots and pans. I have been an adherent to the church of Barkeeper’s Friend for years now and give them my full endorsement. Especially if it’s cooler where you are, there’s something nice about spending a bit of time at the sink and getting your gear in top condition. I swear I cook better with clean pans.
With a clean house, take a moment to enjoy what is one of the last normal weeks of the year. Sample some of the wine. Next week is when all of your hard work pays off.