Thanksgiving meal aftermath

It is done. Here's a photo tour of the full lunch spread, from wide shots to closeups. At the bottom of the post, I'll give my assessment of each component of the meal.

wide shot of pretty much everything

You might look at the bacon, above, and think it was raw. It was not: I baked that sucker at 350°F (about 175°C) for around 70-80 minutes, then blasted the top of the roulade with my top burner for another ten minutes. That bacon couldn't be more thoroughly cooked.

pretty much everything in the shot... except the pie

closeup of the corn pudding

stuffing

taters

roulade

ham

peas/carrots + gravy (cold and stodgy)

my plate (1)

my plate (2): just the stuffing

How would I grade all of this?

Roulade: C

The roulade turned out to be salty, probably thanks to the bacon on the outside and the smoked duck on the inside. Smoked duck is a lot like bacon, being both fatty and salty. The roulade's overall consistency was okay; I avoided the dryness problem, but I might want to do more, next time, to emphasize the juicy meat as opposed to emphasizing the filling.

Stuffing: A

Kicked ass. Good balance of sweet and savory, good variety of textures. Moist but also crunchy. Sounds paradoxical, but it does make sense.

Sweet-potato Casserole: A

I have a sweet tooth, so the "A" grade shows my bias. You may have seen, in one of the above photos, that some of the marshmallows got blackened when I torched them in the office (kitchen blowtorch), but this was no different from campfire s'mores. Everything tasted fine. I know: carbonized food is carcinogenic. News flash: you're probably gonna get cancer one way or another. #2 cause of death in the USA.

Mashed Potatoes: A

Mashed potatoes are hard to mess up.

Gravy: B+

It's a really good gravy, but unless you reheat it properly and stir it to make it smooth again, the whole thing ends up looking gloopy and lumpy even after microwaving.

Ham: A

Sweet sauce for the ham, which once again pleases my sweet tooth.

Corn Pudding: A-

Well, it's a Chef John recipe. Enough said. But it does need to be heated up.

Raspberry Sauce: B+

Generally good. My American coworker said it was a bit too sweet for his taste, but he didn't complain about the sweet-potato casserole, which was arguably just as sugary. I liked my own little cup of the sauce and thought it was a decent replacement for cranberry sauce.

Apple Pie: ???

As of right now, we're all still digesting the main meal, so no one has sampled the pie yet. We might wait until tomorrow.

All in all, I'd give the meal a B or a B+. Falling down on the roulade was tragic; the roulade certainly looked nice once you cut into it, and the texture was perfect, but it was definitely salty. No one complained about the saltiness, and my Korean coworker—who is normally picky—even got himself a second plate of food. Incontheivable! Still, I knew the roulade was salty. As for the gravy... I wish I could have a kitchen/dining setup at the office that allowed me to put things into chafing dishes so that everything could be served hot without the need to microwave anything. Then we'd have smooth gravy on site. Overall, this was not one of my best Thanksgiving meals, but it was passable. I'll try to learn some lessons from this, and I look forward to making something new and different next year.