Our business meeting is held the first Tuesday of the month (Presidential Election be damned), and every month three members of my department are selected to prepare the group meal at the conclusion of the meeting. We are charged with feeding anywhere from 35-60 folks a full dinner, while still keeping the total food costs to under $100.

That works out to roughly $2 per person for a plate of chow.

Now that's a challenge.


We've been fed everything from "The Really Big Salad" (that went over like the Hindenburg), to the ubiquitious hot dog and pizza fiesta, to a grayish, swimming pile of something referred to optimistically as "goulash" (Hello Pepcid). I don't know what the main ingredient in that culinary experiment was, and I don't WANT to know. I was pretty sure I recognized mushrooms, so I picked those out of the pile and pretended to eat them. Occasionally we're treated to flashes of brilliance. The Houghtaling brothers' meatloaf is world class, as is Ernie's meatballs and sauce. Truly outstanding. Because we really run the gamut from the pathetic to the obscure, there is a year-long contest for "Best Business Meeting Meal". You don't win a damn thing except for bragging rights, and I do love me some bragging rights. I was determined to take home the crown.

This month was my turn, along with Will and Matty. Will came up with the brilliant idea of preparing a Thanksgiving Dinner for the gang. In theory, not a bad idea. Turkey is pretty cheap, and the rest of the meal is primarily produce, prepared in a variety of ways. The main cost is sweat equity. Peeling 20 pounds of potatoes ranks right up there with a root canal in the "ain't this fun?" category.

Will and Matty, while both two of my "favorites" in the department, are, at best, kitchen challenged. Matt arrived at the kitchen dance with two pages of notes to prepare mashed potatoes. Will manfully struggled through getting the coffee started (neglecting to notice the BA note taped up on the wall next to the coffee machine which starts out with "HOW TO MAKE COFFEE" ...and excruciatingly detailed instructions that even a deranged orangutan could follow....)

So, I took one for the team. I agreed to do the stuffing, the gravy,the veg and the dessert if Matty would do the potatoes and Will handled the turkey. Oh, Will handled the turkey alright. One of the members of our department owns a deli. WIll called him and ordered three cooked, sliced turkey breasts prepared "homestyle" and ready for pickup on the day of the meeting. Meanwhile, I'm careening around BJ's picking up food in quantities that made me embarrassed to approach the register. I felt the need to announce to the cashier...."Uh, it's not all for ME y'know".
Like she cared. Then again, she WAS pretty busy picking the remnants of her day-glo orange nailpolish off of her nails.

So I arrived at the department during the day (yes, I took the day off from work to do this. Go big or go home.) --
Six hours of mincing, frying, sauteeing, chopping, peeling and stirring later....we were at DEFCON IV.

We had pulled together roasted turkey, sausage and sage stuffing (my own recipe, and if I do say so myself, it rocks), garlic mashed spuds (Matt knocked these out of the PARK), buttered peas, gravy, and for dessert, butter tarts.
I actually baked those from scratch. I don't bake much, because it's an exact science. There's not much scope for imagination in baking. You can't just toss things willy-nilly into the fray and hope that it turns out ok like you can when you're cooking. I know, I've tried that. It's actually kind of cool how badly one can screw up chocolate chip cookies when one decides to disregard the finer points of the recipe.

The gravy. Oh yes the gravy. It turned out amazing....but after hovering over that damned pot for more than two hours constantly adjusting the consistency and the flavor, and taking little sips of it to check along the way, by the time dinner was served I was literally green from a gravy overdose. "Gravy? Uh, no thanks. No, no, there's nothing WRONG with it, but I've already had six gallons this evening. That's my limit."

But.....we took home the crown, unless the December gang can pull something off to better our efforts. The best compliment we got all night was the fact that every single solitary morsel and scrap of food was completely gone at the end of service.

Total cost? $103.00

Put that in your pan and bake it.