ARLINGTON, Texas — This is one of the busiest kitchens in North Texas right now is the home of the Dallas Cowboys.
The chefs and the staff at AT&T Stadium in Arlington are preparing holiday favorites for fans going to the annual Thanksgiving Day game.
The culinary playbook for the game must be followed perfectly.
Heather Fuller serves as the concessions chef for Legends at AT&T Stadium. The food presentations are just as important as the taste for Fuller, who expects perfection from her culinary team.
"We don't cut the corners," Fuller said. "We make sure that everything is nice and fresh."
Fuller and her 2,000-plus-member culinary team start food preps several days ahead of Thanksgiving.
Just like on the field, it's all teamwork.
Each team member has their own assignment, whether it's prepping the salad bowls with locally grown veggies to cooking perfectly fried chicken to even tasting certain items like homemade gravy.
Fuller said, "You have to in the process. So we usually we are tasting several times throughout each batch."
Not only is the number of kitchen staff impressive, but so is the amount of food.
Some of the delicious food stats for include:
- 10,900 lbs of famous mac & cheese
- 4,250 lbs of ham
- 182 gallons of heavy whipping cream
- 238 gallons of cranberry sauce
- 11,700 lbs of turkey
- 2,390 lbs of potatoes
- 4,704 lbs of cornbread for dressing
- 2,204 lbs of sweet potatoes
- 720 lbs of fresh green beans
- 400 lbs of pecans
- 900 lbs of pumpkin
The mac & cheese has a recipe so secret that revealing it could cost Fuller everything.
"I value my job. I don't want to lose it, so I can't give out the secret recipe," said Fuller. "But it's something that I know that we're working on possibly putting into retail."
In the pastry kitchen, the dessert team makes sure their work looks as good as it tastes. Details are put into every dessert cup, custom-decorated cake and every pie baked in their massive oven.
"We all love to see people's reactions when they eat our food. But for some reason, Thanksgiving is just a little bit more special," said Fuller.
After tailgating outside, the thousands of football fans rush into the stadium to watch the Cowboys and enjoy some Thanksgiving favorites.