How to Host Friendsgiving

In case you were wondering, Costco sells rotisserie chicken for $4.99 for the whole bird, which is outrageously cheap. Loyal readers may remember my love of Costco beer, muffins, and breakfast sandwiches. I think Costco actually loses money on their birds, because they use them to direct traffic into the store.

Anyway,  I had never actually bought a Costco chicken before about a week ago. As someone who loves one pot meals, I’m not going to buy and eat a whole chicken by myself,  because that would mean having to wrangle up some vegetable or a starch side dish. But the Costco chicken came in handy when I decided to host Friendsgiving. Multiple people asked me if I would cook a turkey– of course not! I live in a dark cave. I am very generously offering to host. I am not going to spend 4 hours cooking a turkey, because 1. we had a couple of vegetarians coming who would not appreciate a whole roasted turkey carcass and 2. you can buy a roast chicken and a bucket of turkey gravy from Costco and it tastes about the same.

I would like to say I came up with the chicken plus turkey gravy hack by myself, but I stole it from the first Friendsgiving I went to, back in Madison. We also didn’t have a turkey then, but my friend brought a rotisserie chicken and we put gravy on it and it tasted pretty Thanskgiving-y.

I’m not sure if it’s a good sign that the Friendsgiving I went to when I was 23 is more or less the same as the Friendsgiving I hosted at 28, except frankly the accommodations have been downgraded. In Wisconsin, my friend hosted in her beautiful two-story apartment. There was even a ping-pong table in a little alcove, in which we could play our alma mater’s unique drinking game. I think she might have had two couches? But also I think it was lie 30 degrees and snowing, which is one of the major downsides of living in Madison, Wisconsin.

Anyway, one of the first things you need to do to host Friendsgiving is go out and buy some booze. In my case, you go to Costco to buy a roast chicken and wine, forgetting you had already bought wine a couple weeks ago. You now have 6 bottles of wine for 12 people, which is a little aggressive for 6pm on a Sunday. Next, you also go buy some plastic plates and wine glasses, because you realize that between you and your roommate there may not actually be enough plates. Also, you don’t have a dishwasher, so even if you had enough plates washing them would be a pain. You do have enough silverware, none of which matches, because this is a grad school apartment and every previous roommate left some silverware.

The next issue is sitting. You own exactly 1 (one) couch, which is a lovely couch, but cannot fit twelve people. You own four dining room chairs, and a desk chair. You resign yourself to the fact that some people are going to have to sit on the floor. So it may not have been the classiest meal ever served, but there was some plenty of food and booze, and some delicious pumpkin pie/cake hybrid.

All in all, it was a pretty successful meal. And then on Tuesday I drove 380-something miles south to do it all again. I hastily updated my Thanksgiving travel plans, because I saw on the news that there was a chance of snow on the one main road you needed to travel to get into LA. Snow in Southern Californa, unlike in Wisconsin, is a very big deal, because people tend to freak out and forget to drive with the slightest hint of (non-frozen) precipitation, plus this was a holiday weekend. So I (very responsibly) bailed on my classes, because however interesting learning about long-term capital gains is, so is not spending 11 hours stuck on a mountain pass in the snow. We had some Friendsgiving leftovers which I was definitely going to eat, but I ended up bequeathing to my roommate.

So I made it down south, just in time for Thanksgiving Part 2. And this time there was a whole turkey, and placemats, and tablecloths, and non-plastic dishes. And it was lovely. And then on Saturday I had a third Thanksgiving because my mom insisted on cooking another turkey. Which I got to pack up in a little cooler and then drive 300-plus miles (and there was snow! Not falling, but on the side of the road, and LA drivers, being LA-drivers, decided it was a good idea to pull over to the side of the 5 freeway and admire, causing a very-LA traffic jam). Luckily, I still had a bucket of Costco turkey gravy leftover.