Ways to Survive Holidays in the Kitchen: Better Planning

Cooking for the holidays or other big events can be one of the most stressful things you can do, especially if you have a lot of guests and/or some guests are a bit more difficult to please (consider the mother in law who normally hosts and might make one too many comparisons of your turkey to her immaculate one, things like that). Throw in little children, especially over Christmas when they need toys assembled, and the whole day can descend into chaos in mere minutes.

In technology, we spend a lot of time on process and project management. More often than not, projects fail due to poor project management. For my daughter’s first birthday party in 2018, I finally thought of applying some of the process we use at work to making the Tex-Mex spread for our extended family and friends. I remember telling my wife “everything will be out and ready by 2pm”, and she rolled her eyes and said “there’s no way everything will be ready, something is always going to go wrong”.

Challenge accepted. At around 1:58 or so, I sat out the last item on the counter. I then gave my wife my “I told you so” look, and she replied with a very different look of her own.

Okay, so how did I do this? I used a very simplified version of a process called Kanban. The main thing to know for our purpose here is that the Kanban board has 2 or more columns, each menu item is represented by a card that begins on the far left column, cards move left to right as you do things, and when a card is in the right-most column, it’s done. It’s basically a fancier to do list.

You can do this with a physical or virtual board, whichever is easier for you. If you opt for a physical board, you can use a cork board, large whiteboard, even post-it notes on a wall. If you choose to use a virtual board, then I recommend a free app called Trello. My wife and I use this for cooking, home improvement projects, vacation planning, pre-moving tasks, anything you can think of. One awesome feature of Trello is you can use the Description and Comments to link to recipes, give yourself notes, etc.

For Ashlyn’s birthday, I used the board below. Everything started in the “Not Started” column, and moved one column at a time until it was in the “Out and Ready” column.

• New. This is for just getting your menu organized. Add, delete, and reorder at your leisure anytime before the event.
• Prepped. All vegetables are chopped, liquids measured, etc. We are ready to cook this one
• Cooked. This dish is cooked (or completed if it’s something that doesn’t get cooked).
• Out and Ready. This is perhaps the most valuable column. This is on the table or in your buffet line and ready for everyone to consume. I can’t tell you how many times we forgot to pull out the tea or cranberry sauce over Thanksgiving, or pies never left the refrigerator.

This very simple board helped me to quickly answer questions such as:

• “I have a free minute, what can I do next?”
• “Is it time to put the rolls in yet?”
• “Can I sit down for 10 minutes?”
• “Did I remember to set everything out?”

And here’s a screenshot of our Christmas 2020 board at some point before we ate (I added the additional Grocery columns since we started this about a week out, as I knew I’d be making multiple store trips). Cards are in the correct columns and prioritized on what I need to do next.

I also write out a very simple schedule of times when things should be started and finished. This allows me to spread out the work, check if I’m on schedule or not, and then enlist help if needed. I keep this right next to my cutting board for quick reference.

The schedule will not be perfect but will at least give you a decent place to get started. For me, the following went wrong:

• The kids woke up about 90 minutes later than I thought they would, and my wife and I were up until about 2am assembling gifts. By the time we finished opening presents, it was time to start the prime rib, and I hadn’t done the breakfast pizza yet. So instead of scrambling and adding even more stress to myself that morning, I enlisted my wife to handle the breakfast pizza.
• The prime rib wasn’t done at 2pm; it was closer to 2:45pm when I finally pulled it. I did everything on time, but that particular roast needed more time to cook (this happens with larger cuts of meat; they’re done when they’re done).
• I had some downtime at 12:00, so I started the potato and leek soup early. I’m glad I did since the prep on it took about 20 more minutes than I thought it would. So, instead of being 20 minutes behind, I was still 10 minutes ahead of schedule.

Additionally, here are some more things I’ve learned the hard way:

• Prep and cook ahead of time. Anything that can save you some time on the big day will be a plus.
• Enlist help, especially if you’re less experienced. Assign out dishes for people to bring and/or give people tasks they can handle, e.g. peeling potatoes, chopping vegetables, setting out dishes, etc.
• If you’re more experienced, you can handle everything yourself, just make it known that someone else will have to let the dog out or put batteries in the kids’ toys.
• Be sure to not leave food out in the “danger zone” (40-140 F) for more than 4 hours. Keep it hot or cold!
• When I have the space, I prefer buffet-style vs family-style serving, i.e. keep the food off the table. This helps prevent messes, burns, and ensures that everyone sees everything available. When you do this, be sure to set it up in a natural progression, e.g. don’t put the gravy before the potatoes, and consider traffic flow.

And lastly, reflect on what went right, what went wrong, and what you can change for the next event. Here are some notes for myself from this past Christmas:

• Overall, the process worked pretty well.
• I planned to make appetizers for Christmas Eve that could also be snacked on the next day while I cooked. This way, in case something took longer than I thought, people wouldn’t be starving. This was a fantastic idea and worked perfectly.
• I made the horseradish sauce the day before while I made the French onion dip and am glad I did. I just pulled it out of the fridge when it was time to eat, no big deal at all.
• Figure out something for breakfast that morning that I can make ahead and/or requires little active time in the morning.
• Prime rib took longer than I originally thought, so maybe look at a few different recipes and compare cooking times. It was also pretty cold outside, so maybe that affected the cooking time a bit.
• Making homemade rolls is a giant pain to do the day of or even the prior day. Make them a week or so in advance, freeze, then throw in the oven while the roast rests.
• I could have done the mushrooms and soup a day or two before and reheated right before we ate.
• Most importantly, everyone loved the food and had a great day.

What tips do you have for surviving the holidays?