ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, November 28, 1996 TAG: 9611290038
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
HARRIS TEETER COOKS prepared 300 pounds of stuffing, 180 pounds of cranberry relish, 50 gallons of gravy for the 120-plus takeout dinners - not counting side dishes and desserts.
Your cranberry salad won't unmold; your whipping cream is curdled; your gravy is hopelessly lumpy.
And the 20-pound turkey in your oven isn't showing any signs of thawing, let alone roasting to a tasty golden brown.
You have it easy, says Jason Cavagnaro, head chef at Harris Teeter at Roanoke's Towers Shopping Center.
You didn't have to mash enough potatoes to feed a small army, or roast turkeys for 120 customers using two small ovens, or clean up afterward.
Or, for that matter, soothe the man who went ballistic when you misplaced his giblets.
As American families find less and less time to spend whipping up extravagant holiday meals, takeout Thanksgiving dinner is becoming big business for grocery stores and restaurants. According to NPD Group Inc., a market research firm, about 70 percent of all U.S. households will eat turkey on Thanksgiving Day, but only 30 percent will actually cook a bird. The rest will either go to someone else's house, go to a restaurant or, increasingly, order out.
"More people are eating out," said Joe Gabbert, assistant food and beverage manager at the Holiday Inn-Tanglewood. "It's hard to fix a traditional dinner for just a small family."
The hotel is holding its traditional Thanksgiving buffet - turkey, ham and all the fixings - in its ballroom, he said. So far, it has taken 650 reservations. Last year, the hotel had about 600. Diners without reservations may still get seated, he said, but not if they come during the peak hours, from noon to 3 p.m.
The day before Thanksgiving is, for delis such as Cavagnaro's, a lot like the day after Thanksgiving is for stores at the mall: 12 hours of overworked employees, impatient customers and lots and lots of money changing hands.
Consider how much food went into the 120-plus takeout dinners sold at Harris Teeter: 300 pounds of stuffing, 180 pounds of cranberry relish, 50 gallons of gravy. Multiply that by the dozens of grocery stores around the region, and you're talking some serious potential for leftovers.
And that doesn't include all the side dishes - the stuffed acorn squash, the rice pudding, the green beans - that these stores sell by the pound. Or the rotisserie-roasted turkey breasts. Or the desserts.
"Everybody back here is doing at least five jobs at once," Cavagnaro said.
He has just two ovens, each capable of cooking just one bird at a time. Sometimes, when the bakery isn't preparing cakes or breads, he'll commandeer its oven. It's bigger, and he can cook six to 12 birds at once.
He also relies on the Harris Teeter food warehouse in North Carolina. Quite a few of the Thanksgiving turkeys are roasted down there, he said.
"If I had to actually cook 200 turkeys the day before Thanksgiving, there's no way I could do it," he said.
At least, he said, the store is closed Thanksgiving Day. That'll give him a little time to recuperate.
"I'm not going to eat turkey tomorrow," he said, shaking his head. "Maybe hot dogs, maybe steak. No turkey."
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DON PETERSEN STAFF Head chef Jason Cavagnaro checksby CNBHarris Teeter turkey breasts as they roast on Wednesday. color