Panic Strikes Again

Every year we host all the ex-pats from the area at our house for a pot-luck Thanksgiving. I make the turkey, sweet potatoes, green rice (that's broccoli-rice casserole for those of you not directly related to me) and cranberries and invite everybody else to share their special family recipes. Those who don't wanna cook provide the drinks.

Every year right about this time I start to panic...wondering what the hell I was thinking. This year my primary source of panic is space. We're hosting 16 adults, 2 pre-teens, 2 toddlers and 3 bitty babies. I've already resolved the turkey issue (meaning my oven is too small for a sufficiently sized turkey) by reserving my mother-in-law's oven for a second turkey. A major pain in my *** but it's my workaround solution. She's also agreed to watch Dylan so that I can cook and G can run all those last-minute errands. But I'm still not sure where I'm going to put 23 bodies...

To top it all off, G cut out and left me alone on the battlefield this year. The sucker headed to an exhibition in Paris til Wednesday. (I countered his desertion by scheduling Thanksgiving for Saturday afternoon this year...) In the meantime, I guess I have more time to play with seating options.

I counter my panic via extreme planning. You would laugh at the minute-by-minute time schedules I create. (I've managed to restrain myself from entering it all into Excel...just barely). Seriously though, how else does anyone make sure that there are enough burners on the stove/space in the oven?? (Oh, that's right, your ovens are larger than shoeboxes - you lucky bastards).

Tonight it's off for some grocery shopping. Already got the turkeys, a fellow ex-pat managed to grab me two Butterballs off the army base in Stuttgart. My first Butterballs. I'm still a little skeptical since I usually drop $300 for turkey and spent a whopping $30 this year. The whole frozen turkey thing is another source of potential panic but I'll burn that bridge when I get there.

In any case, every year I panic for at least a week. Every year I end up calling my mom/grandma at least twice for emergency cooking advice. Every year G swears "never again." And every year we have an absolute blast and remember why we do this to ourselves again and again.