Thanksgiving dinner for 10,000 cooking in Albany

PHOTOGRAPHER: Marc Schultz

Volunteers started preparing food for the Equinox Thanksgiving Dinner which serves 10,000 meals in the Albany area. The volunteers were on hand at the Concourse Kitchen of the Empire State Plaza on Sunday November 22, 2015 to start prep work and cooking.

Even a meal planned for more than 10,000 people comes down to the ounce.

Yet, it’s that attention to detail and planning that will make it possible to cook, pack and deliver thousands of Thanksgiving Day dinners Thursday as part of the 48th annual Equinox Thanksgiving Day Community Dinner.

“If you don’t scoop the right amount, you won’t have enough food and someone won’t have any mashed potatoes,” said Nancy Virkley, who after more than 20 years volunteering now manages the call center and coordinates donations of ingredients.

“If the scoops are too small, they won’t get enough stuffing and we will have leftovers,” head chef Tom Tibbitts explained. And this is one of the few Thanksgiving meals designed precisely so there are no leftovers.

So as a troupe of volunteers, organizers and professional cooks shuffled around them, Virkley pulled Tibbitts aside Sunday morning to consult on the proper size of serving scoops — the green ones are 22⁄3 ounces.

With more than 12,000 pounds of turkey, 3,400 pounds of white potatoes, 3,200 pounds of yams, 2,300 pounds of green beans, 450 pounds of onions, 2,300 pounds of carrots, 350 bunches of celery, 450-dozen dinner rolls, 400 gallons of gravy and 1,200 pies, Equinox will make a meal fit for a king, and 10,000 of his closest friends.

Planning begins as early as August. Virkley and Tibbitts meet to develop the menu and shopping list, and the Capital Region’s biggest Thanksgiving Dinner is off to the races.

By mid-October, a hot line call center is up and running Monday through Friday, taking orders and scheduling volunteers. The donations start rolling in — local farmers donate entire fields of produce, school and food groups collect canned goods, Price Chopper and Hannaford donate pies and turkeys.

On Sunday, all that preparation started to turn into entrees and side dishes.

Teams of volunteer line cooks and dish washers headed to the kitchens at Empire State Plaza to start preparing and cooking the meals. Around 3,500 volunteers help bring the meals together, peeling and dicing carrots, onions and potatoes, breaking down hundreds of turkeys and stirring huge vats of gravy.

A group of volunteers from Meyers & Meyers, an Albany-based law firm, helped break down around 200 turkeys Sunday morning, ripping out the giblets and splitting them in half for faster cooking.

“We do it because we know no one else wants to, because we are just a little bit mentally warped like that,” said Ally Meyers as another two dozen turkeys were rolled up to their work station.

“Just when they thought they were done,” said Tibbitts, who has worked at the Equinox dinner for 31 years and headed up the cooking for 25 years.

In a separate part of the kitchen, Dorothea Sawyer of Schenectady was busy peeling potatoes. She volunteered Sunday with about a half-dozen coworkers from X-Ray Optical Systems in East Greenbush.

“I’ve been meaning to do this for a couple of years now,” Sawyer said. “Next year, I will probably bring my boyfriend with me.”

There are no boxed potatoes or bagged stuffing in Tibbits’ kitchen. The meal is cooked from scratch, with fresh produce. The stock from slowly simmered turkey backs keeps the stuffing moist and flavorful. The carrots, celery and onions are broiled until tender. The turkeys roast until they are brown and crispy.

The organizers and volunteers will put in long shifts Monday and Tuesday and finish up the final cooking by Wednesday night. On Thursday morning, as hundreds of drivers wait patiently, the final set of volunteers will carefully measure and pack individual meals topped with reheating instructions for every imaginable kitchen appliance. The meals are delivered to homes across the Capital Region.

On Thursday afternoon, Equinox will also host a sit-down Thanksgiving dinner for around 500 people at First Presbyterian Church. Come Friday the final group of volunteers will work to clean up any remaining mess at the church or kitchen.

“There’s nothing these people won’t do,” Tibbitts said of the volunteers. “They come in and ask: ‘What do you want me to do? Do you want me to sweep floors, wash dishes, cook turkeys?’ ”