Giving Thanks by Giving Back
Once a year, we gather around tables and give thanks – for who and what we’re grateful for in our lives, for where we are presently sitting warm and happy, and for how far we’ve come. This Thanksgiving tradition is typically followed with a gorgeous meal that’s been prepared with love and is shared with our friends and families.
This blog is contributed by Julia Ruskin, Corporate Communications Manager for Curiology and Levy Restaurant Group.
While enjoying Thanksgiving dinners over two decades ago, we asked ourselves, “what about those who don’t have as much? How can we give a Thanksgiving experience like this to the members of our community who haven’t been as fortunate this year?” And we decided to proactively seek out ways to give back to our community by creating a Levy Thanksgiving experience and dinner for those in need.
We teamed up with the Pacific Garden Mission and began our Thanksgiving tradition: preparing a homemade, restaurant-quality Thanksgiving dinner and sharing it with those in need in our community. Everything is made from scratch, and the prep for dinner is a multi-day experience. Levy team members volunteer their time to help prepare hundreds of pounds of delicious food. Every volunteer is assigned to a dish and has a special job that, over the years, they’ve became very attached to; and to this day it’s a badge of honor to be a member of any prep team. Levy volunteers don’t stop with the meal prep, though - we help plate, serve and greet guests at the Thanksgiving meal itself.
This year, we’re extremely excited to continue our Thanksgiving dinner tradition with The Salvation Army Chicago in their brand-new space at The Freedom Center, feeding more members of our community than ever before! We’re already hard at work in the kitchens; Teams Green Bean (see video below), Sweet Potato, Dressing, Turkey, and Cranberry are busy prepping each and every dish with lots of Levy's secret ingredient.
We are preparing 1400 lbs of Turkey, 260 lbs of Cranberries, 850 lbs EACH of Sweet Potatoes and Mashed Potatoes, 650 lbs of Green Beans, 850 lbs of Bread Dressing, and 55 gallons of Giblet Gravy. All of these ingredients will allow us to serve 3000 meals to our Chicago community!
To spread the love even further in our community, we want to share our family cranberry recipe with you all, as well - great for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner! We hope you enjoy it as much as we do!
Family Cranberry Recipe:
12 oz. bag of fresh cranberries
2 oranges, zested and juiced
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons extra orange juice
Empty a 12-ounce bag of fresh cranberries into a saucepan. Add 1 cup sugar, orange zest, juiced oranges, lemon zest, and juiced lemon to the pan and cook over low heat. Stir occasionally, until the sugar dissolves and the cranberries are soft, about 10 minutes. Increase the heat to medium and cook until the cranberries burst, about 12 minutes. Reduce the heat to low and add in the 2 tablespoons of extra orange juice. Add sugar to taste and cool to room temperature before serving.