By 8:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, Dean Stewart had nine turkeys cooked and ready to carve. Then, he began preparing 11 more knowing at least four additional turkeys would be donated to St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Hawthorn Woods later in the day.
Stewart cleaned the turkeys and let them sit for about two hours in a salt brine. He then inserted garlic under the skin with a roux of butter, herbs and Louisiana hot sauce, which he said does not make the turkey as spicy as one would imagine.
When the turkeys were dressed and ready, Stewart placed them in Krueger Hall’s double commercial convection oven and cooked them for seven to nine hours at 225 degrees. At night, volunteers were set to come in and carve the turkeys and separate the meat so it’s ready to be warmed up on Thanksgiving day.
For Stewart, the work pays off when he sees 100 to 120 guests enjoying the food together on a holiday that is not meant to be spent alone.
“It’s like having a big family,” Stewart said. “People from all walks of life come. It’s not about money; money has nothing to do with it.”
Stewart and his wife Susan, of Wauconda, began hosting the community dinner at St. Matthew eight years ago, when their once large Thanksgiving dinner dwindled down to the two of them with their daughters Maeghan and Kristen.
The couple talked to others who had nowhere to go, and about 40 gathered for dinner in the church’s Krueger Hall. The following year, they opened dinner up to everyone.
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Guests are invited to bring their favorite appetizer to be shared following 10 a.m. mass. Dinner is served at noon, and anyone is welcome to come.
“We’ll be ready,” Dean Stewart said. “If someone showed up with an extra 20 people, we’d be ready.”
In the beginning, Susan Stewart said, they advertised the dinner in veterans halls, senior centers and food pantries. Since then, it has “kind of just grown on its own,” she said.
Attendees have included small families, young people who have transferred locally for work and a group who moved from the Middle East.
“There are about 20 of them from Lemont that come every year,” Susan Stewart said. “It’s nice be able to get to know their culture, and they enjoy ours.”
One regular attendee is Dave Krueckeberg, a Lutheran pastor who ministers at Hawthorne Race Course. His closest relative is a niece in Edwardsville, which is hard for him to visit since his ministry is in northern Illinois.
Krueckeberg said he decided to attend St. Matthew’s dinner with his friend Jerry McGrath after seeing it advertised in Lutheran Church Charities’ “Making a Difference.”
“The food was excellent, and the people were really … they were great,” Krueckeberg said. “They were nice; they were friendly.”
McGrath, who was battling Leukemia at the time, enjoyed the day so much that he told Krueckeberg they should put it on the schedule for next year. McGrath died 11 days later, but Krueckeberg has returned to St. Matthew every year since.
“You spend time with people, you have a great meal on one of the two or three days of the year you don’t want to be alone,” Krueckeberg said.
Krueckeberg described the atmosphere as relaxed, something Susan Stewart said they strive for as she wants the day to feel as if it was at someone’s home.
The food, which is served buffet-style, is accompanied by football on TV in the background. Susan Stewart buys extra copies of newspapers so guests can rifle through Black Friday ads after dinner.
Once guests have taken their leftovers home, the Stewarts freeze any extra turkey and make casseroles to donate to St. Matthew’s sister church in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood. Last year, the local community meal donated 13 commercial-size containers of food and a tray of Dean Stewart’s mother’s beloved pumpkin torte he began making after she died.
St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Chicago offers a soup kitchen Tuesday and Thursday and uses the donation from St. Matthew in Hawthorn Woods for its Christmas dinner.
“To us, it means the world. If it wasn’t for churches, organizations, anyone, we wouldn’t be able to help our own Pilsen community here,” said Marta Carroll, a volunteer who took off work Tuesday to help prepare for the Thanksgiving meal.
Come next year, Dean Stewart hopes he’ll have built a smoker for the turkeys. For now, he hopes his guests and those in Pilsen enjoy the final product.
“It’s great when you walk into a place, leave and go, ‘Wow that was really, really, really good.'” he said.
“That’s the nice part about having something like this. It’s great when people tell you how much they enjoyed themselves. That makes it all worthwhile.”
Angelica LaVito is a freelancer reporter for the News-Sun.