Anthony Bourdain's Thanksgiving Cook Schedule Gets The Job Done In 3 Days

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Hosting Thanksgiving can feel overwhelming, to say the least, but creating a cooking schedule can help you stay on top of your seemingly endless to-do list before your guests arrive. In his cookbook "Appetites," chef and travel documentarian Anthony Bourdain shared his go-to tips for hosting a flawless Thanksgiving feast. While you'll need to get started far in advance (we're talking a three-day timeline), his step-by-step prep plan for the grand holiday dinner will have you organized, less stressed, and ready to kick back and enjoy a delicious meal with your guests by the time they arrive. 

On the first day — 72 hours out from the arrival of your loved ones — Bourdain recommended hitting the grocery store to get all your Thanksgiving essentials. You can also start defrosting your turkeys (you'll want two — more on that in a moment), make stock, and set bread out to let it start turning stale before it's transformed into stuffing. The second day, you'll make gravy and cranberry sauce (unless you're partial to the canned stuff), and do the prep work for all your side dishes, from peeling to chopping. Finally, on Thanksgiving morning, you'll roast your turkeys, cook your side dishes, and get everything on the table.

As we alluded to with this buying multiple birds business, Anthony Bourdain recommended roasting two turkeys: One to eat and one for show. The chef referred to the former as the "business turkey," and talked about how different parts could be roasted at different times and deconstructed for serving in advance of dinner, allowing you to serve perfectly oven-warmed turkey to your guests. The "stunt turkey," however, mainly functions to look pretty — you can put it on the table during dinner then carve it up to send home with your guests after the meal is finished.

As far as tips on what to serve at Thanksgiving, Bourdain felt you couldn't go wrong with the classics. In "Appetites," he shared his love for the familiar. He believed that food didn't have to be fancy to be great — he was a big fan of his mom's macaroni and cheese, which simply featured cheddar cheese, butter, whole milk, and a bit of salt and pepper. "Thanksgiving is not the time for innovation," Bourdain wrote in his cookbook. "Give the people what they want, and make sure it's consistent with what they remember."

However, there was one place where Bourdain veered from the traditional Thanksgiving norms: dessert. Bourdain wasn't generally a fan of dessert (although he did once speak fondly of his mother's French crème caramel), and would often forgo the sweet stuff. In fact, in "Appetites," he devotes a single page to desserts — telling readers to skip it altogether and serve wine and cheese to finish off the meal instead. Of course, your guests will probably be a bit disappointed if there's no pie on Thanksgiving.