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Holiday Dinner Tip from Restaurant Pros: Limit the Menu

After watching some people online getting freaked out about trying to put on holiday dinners and getting overwhelmed to the point that they're thinking about canceling the whole thing, I thought I'd put out a restaurant tip that will help people put on a dinner with less aggravation. A big complaint among the frustrated home cooks I've seen is that family members are not contributing to the dinner. But a bigger problem I see is that their menu is just too big. One lady's family is having her make 12 dishes all by herself, and some of these dishes look pretty complicated.

Watch the video here or read on.




The reason this is aggravating is that more dishes mean more shopping, more prep, and more cleanup. It's hard to make several dishes that will all be ready at the same time. Even though I used to be a prep cook at a restaurant, I've put on Thanksgiving dinners myself, and I cook from scratch almost every day, there's no way I'd try to make a 12-course dinner myself. In fact, it's such a hassle that even successful hoteliers and chefs recommend to restaurant owners to limit their menu.

Hotelier Alex Polizzi: "Offering so many different menu options can make it impossible for the chefs in the kitchen to deliver a consistently high standard of food, and on time."

Chef Gordon Ramsey to a chef offering 20 spice combinations on his menu: "You have got an amazing chance to succeed here if you keep it simple."

Chef Mike Nassar of Detroit 75 Kitchen: "A big menu is a big mistake."

If professional chefs can't manage a big menu, most home cooks shouldn't try it, either. The way that we put on big meals in the past was that people would bring over side dishes that they'd made, and some of those side dishes were actually pretty easy. People used canned goods, frozen foods and food out of a box (it was what we ate at the time). But if you're cooking everything from scratch, that's a lot more work. Limit the menu to what you can manage. And if the holiday menu cost is eating into gas money (as with one of the hosts in the video linked to above), the menu might have to be limited to dessert.

Video here: https://youtu.be/4lL4TZ_GCH0?si=ji0VyexGB7ABYkMu 

"Lori Miller with her lovely Thanksgiving (duck) dinner. With Bob, Kathy, Mom & Dad. It was a real fun day." We all pitched in basic holiday dishes. 


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