(Not) Home for the Holidays by Allison E. '27

I’ve been home for winter break since last Sunday, and it’s been a flurry of many things, but second most importantly, it’s been a flurry of FOOD!! 

Christmas dinner--Hawaii potluck style!

my parents picked me up from the airport and immediately drove to Foodland (a local grocery store) to buy poke

my Aunty Lori's pumpkin crunch :D

gingerbread cookies with the cousins!

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In honor of holiday meals at home, I want to share a holiday meal away from home. Aka, it’s finally time to post my (extremely belated) Thanksgiving saga!

It is Thursday, November 28th.⁠01 it is not Or, well, it will be when I post this (hopefully).⁠02 it will not be Another year, another Thanksgiving cooking post!

Sophomore fall has been busy for my friends & I, which has meant no more 12-person feasts on random weekends in the middle of the semester (very PNR-core). But! This Thanksgiving, most of us are on campus, so we’ve decided to remedy that in as overzealous a fashion as possible. I’m documenting this attempt in real time⁠03 err… perhaps not entirely , so today’s blog post is like Maxwell’s equations: it comes to you in 4 parts.

Part 1: The menu

I write from ye olden days of Tuesday, November 26th. Our spirit is indomitable, and our ambition knows no bounds. After 251 messages, 4 in-person scheming sessions, and a very chaotic spreadsheet, we’ve arrived at a (prospective) menu:

Is it cohesive? Nope. Do we care? Also nope.

As a food traditionalist, I insisted on some of the classic American Thanksgiving dishes–turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, and cranberry sauce. However, as someone who doesn’t actually like those foods that much (oops 🫣), I’m very happy that the rest of our repertoire is… not classic American LOL. Also, yes, the turkey will be precooked, and very small. We’re not ready to spend 8 hours screwing up a $40 turkey when most people don’t like turkey anyways 😭

Part 2: The shopping

It’s now Wednesday, November 27th, and we’ve finally finished gathering the ingredients… ‘Twas a long and arduous journey, tracing three corners of Boston, six grocery stores, an Uber grocery delivery and 11 man-hours. Nevertheless, we did it!

By the day before Thanksgiving, most of campus has already gone home, and classes are half-empty or cancelled. Nevertheless, work never ceases, and our grocery run didn’t begin until 5:00 pm. However, because our menu is an odd combination of traditional American Thanksgiving, various Asian cuisines, and a Hungarian cake, we had to hit several locations–Whole Foods for the pre-cooked turkey, H Mart⁠04 the local Korean grocery store for the Asian ingredients, Star Market⁠05 the large grocery store across the Charles River for the niche ingredients, and Trader Joe’s for the cheapest prices. 

Our crew of four shoppers split in two, with Arthur L. ‘27 and Benson L. ‘27 headed to H Mart and Miranda Z. ‘27 and I headed to Star Market. Miranda and I took the 1 Bus across the Charles River and stopped by a small Trader Joe’s along the way, just to gauge prices before actually buying things. Then we roamed the aisles of the gloriously large Star Market, searching for anything discounted.

the slowly growing pile...

this is an affront to mankind... miranda nearly bought it

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After a moderately successful haul, we Ubered back to our dorm (yes, we’re lazy smh) to meet Arthur & Benson and shove our acquisitions in the fridge. Then, Benson and I set off for the final leg of the journey: Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s.

The walk from Burton-Conner to Trader Joe’s is 25 minutes, but there’s a Bluebikes station⁠06 For a $50 annual student membership, you can ride Bluebikes between any of their many stations around Boston! Very convenient when public transit fails you… nearby and a nice bike lane heading straight there, so it’s only around 15 minutes! We rode the Bluebikes to Trader Joe’s and then walked to Whole Foods to pick up our turkey–which, apparently, was NOT small AT ALL. Oh well, not complaining!

Finally, one last stop for the rest of the grocery shopping–Trader Joe’s part 2–the much larger and better stocked Cambridge-side version.

SIKE!

This Trader Joe’s had NO EGGS. As in, none to speak of whatsoever. Not even $10 organic free range non-GMO grass fed calculus-proficient eggs 😭.⁠07 smth smth avian flu smth smth :(( We also couldn’t find cocoa powder or heavy whipping cream, both of which Trader Joe’s consistently has. It was 8:30 pm. We still hadn’t eaten dinner. Everywhere was closing soon. *Panic*

This is where, as much as I hate to admit it, Uber delivery came to save the day… Armed with a handy 40% coupon, we put in an order for all the missing ingredients and headed back to Burton-Conner. Mission complete!!

Of course, this success meant a celebration was in order–next stop, dinner in Chinatown! 

dim sum… yumm

Andddd then we Ubered back to campus, right? nOpE, it’s time for late night walks through Boston!!

… 2 hours, 3 playgrounds, and many shenanigans later …

Ok, finally sleep time. See y’all tomorrow!

Part 3: The cooking

Thanksgiving day has arrived–let the cooking begin!

SIKE AGAIN! The Uber grocery delivery did NOT include heavy whipping cream. Despite charging us for an even larger carton than we’d requested. So… off went Benson to Whole Foods (closed), CVS (no whipping cream), and Hmart (no whipping cream). Lesson learned–no last minute Thanksgiving shopping 😭. He ended up grabbing coconut milk as a substitute.

Nevertheless, we persevered. There were 16 dishes to cook, and 11 people to feed. Luckily, Csilla F. ‘27 lives in a large suite, and her suitemates were gone for the weekend, so we set up shop there (thank you Csillaaa). After stealing borrowing some extra tables, chairs, and cooking equipment from… locations, we set to work.

This isn’t our first rodeo, and by now we’ve mastered the art of parallelized cooking–there’s always a task for everyone, regardless of skill (which I don’t have much of). Chopping cucumbers, mashing potatoes, buttering corn, and most importantly, washing the neverending stream of dirty dishes!!

hard at work :D

the meal in progress–shoutout to master chef Arthur for pulling off both fried chicken and braised pork (half of our main dishes)

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Finally finally finally, after 6+ hours of cooking,⁠08 it wasn’t all hands on deck the whole time the feast was complete!! The final menu (slightly modified from the original) included turkey, braised pork, fried chicken, pork ribs, carbonara, mashed potatoes, stuffing, fresh bread, corn on the cob, chinese cucumber salad, korean-style yu choy, gravy, apple pie, tres leches cake, coconut milk cake, and striped biscuits. pHew…

this photo doesn't even have the four desserts and several other entree items LOL

don't mind all the food mixing :((( I wanted to shove as much as possible

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Part 4: The aftermath

By the time dinner was finished, it was only 9:00 pm, and the night was still young! It was time for… a rager? Nope, time for an infernally difficult 1,000 piece puzzle !!!! Accompanied by at least 10 renditions of the song “APT.”, a bunch of silly dancing, and many shenanigans,⁠09 i.e. running around outside with Evelyn L. ‘27 without coats at 2 am of course.

And then it was 2:00 am, and the puzzle wasn’t done. It didn’t help that the pieces are all funky, and we refused to look at the picture. And then it was 3:00 am, and the puzzle wasn’t done. And then it was 4:00 am. And then… FINALLY, at 5:00 am on the dot (I have timestamps), we put the last piece into the puzzle, and Thanksgiving was officially over!

this thing is actually evil

We might not have been home for Thanksgiving, but we made a little piece of it for ourselves in Boston. Happy holidays y’all!