Most Thanksgivings are simple, a classic menu for a small family, but this year we had several British family friends join us, which left me cooking for ten. One person couldn’t have salt, two were caffeine free, and the biggest challenge was preparing a menu that would not exclude the no-sugar, gluten-free vegetarian. Oh my.
Scouring the Farmers Market and Whole Foods left me with plenty of wholesome produce to work with, but after the initial planning of the menu came another concern. The no-sugar, gluten-free vegetarian had said in past American Thanksgivings, no one ever considered her dietary restrictions while planning the meal, thus she just push around bits of salad on her plate while others gorged themselves. With so many people attending the meal, I would be exhausted by the time I thoroughly explained how each dish was prepared, pointing out the vegan, non-glutinous, non-caffeinated, sugar-free items. Tedious to recall as well.
My solution was to create little cards to be placed by the dish explaining what it is and the considerations I took while preparing it (such as using veggie-stock rather than chicken-stock). I have some family members with no dietary considerations who would still need to be briefed on what exactly kale is, and reassured that yes, it is edible. Concept seemed simple, but it was the design of the cards that became quite a distraction.
Ideally, I would like to handwrite them, in my draftsman uppercase hand, using a Pilot 05 Razor or a 03 Micron pen on heavy cardstock. Unfortunately, since I was also responsible for cooking the numerous dishes that would make up the meal, as well as making the cards to explain them, that didn’t seem practical. Not only would that take more time than I had to ensure each letter had perfected x-heights and consistent ascenders/decenders, but after cooking for so many hours I was exhausted; attempting my first hand-written card proved to be far too frustrating, the muscles in my hand were trembling from such overuse, heavy lifting of full pans and chopping of absurdly dense squash. I just couldn’t negotiate my writing into consistency.
I settled by relying on Avenir (my all time go-to typeface) – 10pt for proper dish name and 8pt for the little description underneath. The typed cards turned out well enough (and meant I wouldn’t be repeating myself throughout the meal when asked what exactly was in that dish), but they felt impersonal. Avenir is beautiful and shockingly clean, sometimes making it feel a bit cold. In this case, especially when used to describe warm, hand-made, home-cooked, family style food, Avenir just seemed mechanical – handwriting would have extended that warm-personalized mood of the day. I doubt using a serifed font would have improved matters and I most certainly was not going anywhere near script. Even if my hand lettering is still pretty technical, at least it’s personal and the ink from the 03 Micron pen would fantastically indent the paper as it stained through to make the lovely dark lettering. Next year I’ll make the cards before I enter into the labor intensive cooking marathon and we’ll see if it really makes as big of difference as I’m theorizing.
