Prepping a full Thanksgiving meal for the family is hectic enough. Now imagine cooking 350 whole turkeys, 400 pounds of potatoes and, for dessert, approximately 360 pies.
That's the feat of a feast that pulled off in recent days to fill this year's orders for its communitywide Thanksgiving To-Go program.
David Castillo, a production kitchen worker, portions out root vegetables inside Arizona Dining's main kitchen at the University of Arizona's Student Union Memorial Center.
Since 2014, the University of Arizona's on-campus food service provider has been selling complete, takeout holiday meals to faculty and staff.
Early on, the to-go program “primarily served our on-campus community,†said Arizona Dining spokeswoman Katie Schoeben, but as word got around, orders started coming in from customers outside of the university.
“Today, we regularly begin receiving inquiries as early as mid-September from both returning and new customers who look forward to what we’ll be offering each year,†said Schoeben, associate marketing director for . “It has been incredibly heartwarming to see this tradition become part of holiday celebrations across our community.â€
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For all of its Thanksgiving-related meals this year, including the takeout offerings, the U of A dining team stocked up on more than 3½ tons of turkey — 350 whole birds and another 1,000 pounds of raw turkey breast.
A large portion of Brussels sprouts being prepared inside the University of Arizona Student Union kitchen ahead of the Thanksgiving order pickup.
That was paired with 800 pounds of potatoes (sweet and otherwise), 500 pounds of Brussels sprouts, 400 pounds of fresh spinach, 400 pounds of house-made cranberry relish and 250 pounds of carrots. They even had to order spices in eye-popping amounts: 10 pounds each of rosemary, sage and thyme.
Storage for all those ingredients is one of the biggest challenges, even in a kitchen with 10 walk-in coolers.
“It’s like a lot of Tetris,†said Manja Blackwood, executive sous chef for Arizona Dining. “At the end of the day, you can’t even get into (some of these) walk-in†refrigerators.
Takeout turkey
All of the work that goes into Thanksgiving To-Go comes on top of their normal responsibilities, Blackwood said. Arizona Dining serves around 30,000 meals a day and operates more than 30 kitchens across campus.
She said the university has about 60 cooks and bakers on staff, and about 20 of them were needed for the Thanksgiving prep work that began early last week.
The effort was set to culminate on Wednesday with an assembly line of sorts in Arizona Dining’s main production kitchen on the first floor of the U of A Student Union Memorial Center. Starting at 6 a.m., Blackwood said, a crew of workers would begin assembling the family meals and boxing them up for pickup starting at 9 a.m.
“It’s like an organized mess,†she said with a laugh.
Kathrine Jones, a University of Arizona student worker, peels red onions while working food prep inside the Student Union kitchen.
Every dish in every box was packaged and labeled, and each meal came with detailed reheating instructions on a laminated sheet to protect it from spills. Two people were assigned to double-check every order to make sure it was filled correctly.
“We take pride in what we’re doing. We want to make sure everything is 100% for everyone,†Blackwood said.
Then the packaged meals were carted upstairs to the pick-up area on the north side of the Student Union, where the circle drive on Mountain Avenue became a drive-through for customers as campus police officers provided traffic control.
In the midst of it all, the culinary team also had to prepare a 350-plate, all-you-can-eat Thanksgiving buffet Tuesday night for a free dinner in the Student Union’s Grand Ballroom for students stuck on campus over the holiday.
Somehow, though, this isn’t the busiest time of year for the kitchen crew. That would be the second weekend in March, when the U of A hosts the annual Tucson Festival of Books.
For that event, Blackwood said, Arizona Dining has to create a special menu and prepare all the food for the annual authors dinner — appetizers and a multi-course meal for up to 1,000 guests, tailored to match the theme of the festival. Last year’s authors' dinner featured a glow-in-the-dark dessert, Blackwood said proudly while showing off cellphone pictures of the creation.
Cooked Thanksgiving turkeys sit inside a Student Union kitchen freezer at the U of A.
For Thanksgiving To-Go this year, Arizona Dining offered a four-course meal for $115 plus tax that included a whole turkey, prime rib or vegetable Wellington, a salad, six side dishes, dinner rolls and dessert — enough food to feed up to eight people. Customers could also purchase single meals to-go, as well as a la carte items and baked goods, including a carrot cake Blackwood said is still made using a recipe that hasn’t changed in 100 years.
Word of mouth
Schoeben said the holiday offerings are priced to break even by covering the cost of ingredients, preparation and labor, but any modest profit that Arizona Student Unions might make from the to-go meals gets reinvested into its engagement programs, facilities and events for students.
The university doesn’t advertise Thanksgiving To-Go, beyond a temporary landing page on the Arizona Dining website, where customers can see the menu and place orders. Interest in the program has “spread organically through social media and personal recommendations,†Schoeben said.
The University of Arizona's Thanksgiving menu for individual meals includes a choice of pecan, pumpkin or apple pie slices.
“Most off-campus orders come from alumni, friends and family of current Wildcats or repeat customers who have made our meals part of their holiday tradition,†she said. “Because of this — and because our core mission is to support the campus community — we do not see ourselves as competing with local Tucson restaurants.â€
Blackwood said the program’s busiest year came before COVID, when about 320 family meals were sold. Fewer than 200 meals were sold this year, she said, possibly because they moved up the deadline for orders from Tuesday to Monday to avoid potential last-minute supply issues.
Cases of spiced-maple yams with pecans are ready for Thanksgiving customers inside the Student Union kitchen at the U of A.
Schoeben said the menu and the ingredients needed are carefully planned to minimize food waste. But if there are leftovers, the culinary team will do what most households do after turkey day: “creatively repurpose†the food into other dishes that, in this case, can be served at various on-campus dining outlets or offered as supplemental meals at .
“This ensures high-quality food is never wasted and continues to serve our campus community,†Schoeben said.
Meanwhile, work in the production kitchen at the Student Union has already shifted to the next special occasion. Workers there on Tuesday could be seen cutting dough into Christmas cookie shapes.
Arizona Dining starts taking orders for its winter on Dec. 1.
