MANY HANDS MAKE LIGHT WORK

In years to come, I shall have to refer to this as "the year I learned to delegate." I have always prepared most of our holiday meals on my own because our children were young, my husband dislikes cooking, and our guests had to travel in from afar. The good thing about this is being able to plan the menu to suit myself, and making things just the way I like them. The downside is that it can get a bit lonely in the kitchen, when everyone else is out in the other room yukking it up and having a good time. Everyone was always good about offering to help, but I may have had a bit of a control issue, for it sometimes made me kind of crazy to have a bunch of people elbowing for space in my tiny kitchen. I am getting over that.

This year I sent out e-mails ahead of time, asking each person who was coming to tell me what dishes were vitally important to their enjoyment of the holidays. My side of the family has always tended to try different recipes each year, so we never got too attached to one way of doing things. When I decided to try a Tex-Mex version of turkey and dressing, they were begging for the recipe. John's family is more traditional. I fixed the same thing for them the following year, and got a 30 minute lecture on how to properly smoke a turkey. I understand where they are coming from though, for I know many other people who feel it is just not Thanksgiving if they do not get their usual dressing, made just the way dear old Mom always did it.

So, when my e-mail replies came back saying "we really like our turkey smoked" and "I've always loved Priscilla's special dressing and giblet gravy" and "I love those special frozen rolls my wife always buys," I found myself thinking, "Well, why the heck not?" I put hubby and B-I-L in charge of smoking the turkey, S-I-L in charge of making her traditional dressing and gravy, nephew in charge of making a couple of his favorite vegetarian dishes, son in charge of assembling his hot curried fruit compote, and daughter and niece-in-law in charge of decorating and setting the table. They sent me their grocery lists so I could have the ingredients on hand, and all that was left for me to do was to make a couple of desserts in advance, and bake the rolls and mash the potatoes at the last minute. In between, I just got my butt out of their way, and joined the group in the other room that was yukking it up and having a good time. Why didn't I think of this years ago?

Oh yeah, in case you are wondering how the great turkey experiment turned out? Well, I think it's going to take the guys a couple of years to adjust to dealing with a smaller, leaner bird. If they had just slept in a couple of more hours, instead of getting up before dawn to start the smoker, the turkey might have ended up a tad juicier. The flavor, however, was excellent, and I might even be able to get a nice pair of shoes made out of the skin!