Thanksgiving came early this year for students who attended the Second Annual Thanksgiving Dinner, held in MoCon Wednesday evening. The meal consisted of traditional Thanksgiving fare and was served to each table by volunteer staff and faculty.
“Our Thanksgiving dinner is a very special event here. It’s really a combination of style of service, atmosphere, and of course, the food,” said Senior Food Service Director Bridgett Stapleton.
This year, students were offered the chance to sign up in advance for either a 5:00 p.m. or 7:00 p.m seating, one more choice than last year. According to Maureen O’Donnell, director of operations for dining services, the additional seating allowed about 300 more students to participate.
“Last year, only one seating at 7:00 p.m. was offered for the students,” O’Donnell said. “We got complaints from the athletes that it was hard for them to make the dinner because they had practice at this time, so I spoke with the Director of Athletics and we coordinated a plan to urge coaches to let their students leave early from practice. But, just in case these students can’t leave practice, we now have the 5:00 p.m. dinner for them to attend.”
The menu, according to O’Donnell, Stapleton, and Executive Chef Alan Potts was a basic “New England Thanksgiving dinner.”
“It’s a very traditional menu. Maybe we were thinking that not everyone sits down to a traditional Thanksgiving meal, and so that’s why we decided to create the menu in this style,” Potts said. “We cook very basic dishes and we also use ingredients and vegetables that are native to the New England area.”
Items on the menu included turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, a vegetable medley, rolls and butter, crackers and hummus, and apple and pumpkin pie. The vegetarian/ vegan option was a Hubbard squash stuffed with wild rice and cranberries.
“The vegan students were psyched last year about the squash,” O’Donnell said. “We do a lot of seitan and tofu dishes on a regular basis, so a squash option was a new idea for them. Based on the positive feedback we got on the vegan dish last year, we decided we had to offer it again this year.”
According to O’Donnell, last year there were about 10 vegan tables at the meal, but this year there were only three. One student seated at a vegan table agreed with Stapleton’s claims about the squash.
“I enjoyed the vegan squash dish very much. It was substantial and tasty,” said Sarah Abbot ’10.
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