Every good cook knows preparation is half the battle when fixing a Thanksgiving Day meal for a crowd.
Thomas “Chick” DiPietro has that part down pat.
When people start filing into St. Francis of Assisi Kitchen today at 11 a.m., the Thanksgiving feast awaiting them will be the product of days of planning, peeling, roasting, cooking and carving by Mr. DiPietro and a small army of volunteers.
Mr. DiPietro, 62, chef at the Catholic Social Services-operated kitchen for the past 13 years, expects between 200 and 225 guests for the holiday meal that will include turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, roasted sweet potatoes, mixed vegetables, homemade turkey noodle soup, gravy, cranberry sauce and, for dessert, apple or pumpkin pie.
“I really put out whatever I have,” he said.
Preparation of the meal began Friday, when Mr. DiPietro started roasting the first of the 28 turkeys that St. Francis will serve today.
By Tuesday, the turkey breasts were already sliced and divided into individual servings laid atop stuffing in a walk-in cooler. Mr. DiPietro barbecues the legs, thighs and wings and puts them out as the dark meat.
“Believe it or not, they go before the white meat,” he said.
Aside from the 28 turkeys, some of the other numbers are just as daunting: 110 pounds of stuffing, 150 pounds of potatoes, 75 pounds of sweet potatoes, 20 pounds of vegetables, 10 gallons of gravy, six gallons of soup.
Archbald resident Frank Plominski and three other volunteers were busy Tuesday morning peeling the potatoes for the Thanksgiving meal.
Mr. Plominski, 60, who worked as the food service manager at the State Correctional Institution at Waymart before retirement, volunteers at St. Francis two days a week.
When he sits down for his own dinner with family today, he said he will count his blessings and say a prayer for the people in need who will be fed on Thanksgiving because of the kitchen.
“You look at the folks who come in here, especially the families,” Mr. Plominski said. “So many are working families that just can’t survive without something to supplement their income and, my belief is, take care of their kids.”
Mr. DiPietro planned to be at the kitchen by 7 this morning to begin final preparations for the meal, with volunteers filtering in later to help out.
By 2 p.m., he’ll be back at his Dunmore home, where his wife of 44 years, Judy, will have his family’s Thanksgiving dinner on the table.
“When I get home, it will be ready,” he said. “We’ll say grace and eat.”
Contact the writer:
dsingleton@timesshamrock.com