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Cooking Thanksgiving Dinner if You Have Never Done It Before

Cooking the big meal this year for the first time? Here are some tips.

Mary DeVries
7 min readNov 16, 2020
Photo by 🇨🇭 Claudio Schwarz | @purzlbaum on Unsplash

Whether you are preparing the feast just for yourself or for your bubble, here’s some advice if you find yourself cooking due to Covid this year.

The first Thanksgiving dinner I ever cooked was for three people as a 21-year-old newlywed. I had promised a mealtime of 2 pm. Instead, we ate at 8 pm. My biggest mistake was purchasing a frozen turkey the day before and expecting it to thaw overnight. That bird took forever to cook. But I did eventually get a meal on the table and no one got food poisoning.

Now, a few decades later, I can whip up a holiday feast for 20 practically on autopilot. I’ve also done it in foreign countries where I didn’t have access to American products or appliances so I’m used to making do. Let me share my experience with you.

Identify what matters most

Most of us have some pretty solid traditions that we return to year after year for Thanksgiving. If your traditions involve gathering with family and/or friends you are probably facing adjustments. Nobody wants to kill grandma and this year there is a risk from more than just undercooking the turkey.

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Mary DeVries
Mary DeVries

Written by Mary DeVries

I delight, despair and write about a life lived around the world. Fueled by Yorkshire Gold tea.

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