Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away and I’m already starting to get anxious. Every year, my family gathers at my parent’s house and starts cooking dinner early in the morning—and then the arguments begin. There are four daughter, three aunts and my mother all packed into the kitchen, and we all love to cook, but we just can’t seem to stop pecking at each other. Can you help?
Signed,
Tremulous Turkey
Dear Tremulous Turkey,
On the one hand, you’re lucky to have many people in your family with great cooking skills, however, it sounds like you have a classic problem of “too many cooks in the kitchen.”
Here are some ideas to help solve your problem:
• A week before the holiday, bring together all the family members who cook and openly discuss the problem.
• Is the issue that there is not enough space? Or is it a clash of personalities? Can better planning solve any of the identified problems?
• As a group, brainstorm ways that you can take some of the pressure out of the situation.
• Can everyone share in the preparation responsibilities in their own kitchens, rather than all trying to cook in the same space together? Can the mealtime be shifted later in the day, so there is more time to prep individually? Can event day tasks be clearly assigned to prevent bickering?
• Also make sure to assign a “clean-up” committee that doesn’t involve the chefs, to balance out the work load and alleviate some tension.
I hope that helps and remember: this holiday is supposed to be about gratitude—so be grateful for that bottle of wine that you hid outside of the kitchen!
Love,
Henrietta
Henrietta Craven was born and raised in New Bern and enjoys gardening, hunting bears and improvisational dance. She is a self-proclaimed expert on a wide variety of subjects including (but not limited to) fashion, mixology, and cooking. Henrietta resides in a lovely Victorian home in downtown New Bern with her five cats: Graffenreid, Bethune, Devereux, Stanton and Carraway.