When I entered the first-floor hallway coming down from fourth period Orchestra on November 21, I was accosted by a flurry of members of Students for a Better World, asking if I wanted to buy a plate of Thanksgiving food from them for $8, or a dessert for $2. The included items on the plate were turkey from a catering service (your choice of dark or white meat), and a choice of 4 options from mashed potatoes, two types of mac and cheese, cornbread, green bean casserole, candied yams, as well as desserts such as brownies, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, apple crisp, and chocolate chip pumpkin caramel cookies.
I’m a big Thanksgiving food fan, so I was quite excited despite the steep price. However, I truly only wanted the turkey and the pumpkin pie, so I was upset that I couldn’t just pay for one or two things that I wanted to and had to pay so much for a whole plate. I did enjoy the helpful QR code stationed in front of the cash drawer run by Ms. Rodems though, as I don’t often carry cash with me. I paid $8 online and showed them the confirmation, and got turkey, dark of course, cornbread, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie.
The turkey was delicious, but not quite my preference. It was deliciously seasoned but it just wasn’t my favorite. It ranks last in my opinion.
The cornbread was my second favorite, cooked by Rico Duursma himself, as I was informed whilst in line as a selling point. It was seasoned well, and just slightly sweet which is how I prefer my cornbread. I have heard much about Duursma’s cooking throughout the school and his “Cooking with Rico” series, and he very much did not disappoint. He has a bright culinary future ahead of him.
The mashed potatoes were third in my ranking. They were well-seasoned, with all of the quintessential flavorings you hope to see in a pan of mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving. It was classic, warm and inviting. There’s not much to say about it, but that’s the beauty of amazing mashed potatoes. They don’t need to stand out to be amazing.
However, my favorite was the pumpkin pie. It was soft and sweet, but perfectly spiced. I was later told that it was from Costco, which I couldn’t believe at first. I am a proud Sam’s Club member, but if Costco makes pies like this, I might just have to switch over. It was the perfect filling, with no chunks of unmashed pumpkin or any extraneous bits of unmixed seasoning. It had the perfect filling-to-crust ratio, for me at least. I am not a big fan of crust, so the lack of large amounts of crust really brought home how perfect this pie was.
Overall, I heavily enjoyed the food available at today’s sale. It came at a steep price of $8 a plate, when in recent memory from my freshmen and sophomore years, full plates tended to be $5, but the economy comes for us all eventually, I guess. It is also important to note that as lunch went on, the price for each individual item dropped to $1, and that you were apparently allowed to buy individual items from the start, but it seemed people were confused and thought that they had to pay for the whole plate, myself included. If I had the choice again, I would have skipped the turkey and pumpkin pie, and probably would have just gone for the cornbread and mashed potatoes. But would I buy from the fundraiser again? Absolutely.
