Location: Breaking Bread Ministries/LaSalle Street Church
Date: Wednesday, April 05, 2017; 5:45-8:15 pm
I had not been here for a couple
of months and so it was nice to come back.
I arrived to see the usual busy activity in the kitchen, though Marianne
was missing today. As I went inside,
Chef Dan’s wife said that he had just mentioned to her how I had been missing
and he confirmed that. It was very
lively tonight and I saw a lot of familiar faces. The main highlight of tonight’s menu was “Cincinnati Style Chili”, meaning a
huge amount of meat being cooked on the grill.
 |
| Tonight's Menu |
There were a lot of cans to be
opened, beans as well as some containing carrots, peas and corn. I was paired with a volunteer and we got down
to it, with me on the big can opener, while she drained the fluid from the
cans. We were doing well initially, but
then the opener started giving me trouble and not only was I making a mess of
the lid, I was spraying the fluid inside all over myself and some on my fellow
volunteer! But we got everything out of
the can and then it was off to the steamers for a short time. We stirred after 5 minutes- and yes it was
hot – and then added melted butter and put it in the warmer.
The dining hall was filling up
and since we had a lot of volunteers, I had some time to chat with the
Chef. I asked him what “Cincinnati Style Chili” meant, and he said
that it included “Mediterranean Spices”. I guess it must be because of the thriving
trade that Cincinnati has with Italy and Greece! The Chef mentioned that he was getting
tattoos of his knives on his forearms and we spent some time discussing that
and how I would get a tattoo if it wasn’t so permanent. The Chef said that he probably has to worry
about it for a maximum of 20 more years and so wasn’t too concerned. “Yeah,
better than getting a girl’s name tattooed on when you are in your early 20’s”,
I said!
We assigned duties and I was on
plating. We went outside and started by
distributing the salad bowls – individual sized – and then took our place in
the assembly line. I got the plate at
the end with the Chili already on a bed of pasta and beans and my task was to
sprinkle chopped onions on it and put a slice of homemade bread on the plate. The bread had been made by one of our
volunteer’s mother and it was really good.
We had handed out most of the plates when I realized something. We had forgotten to take the vegetables out
of the warmer.
The volunteer with whom I had
worked on it came up with a brilliant idea of putting the container on a cart
and taking it to each table and serving them.
“Tableside service”, I
said. We went to each person and many of
them rejected the vegetables, after learning that it was corn, carrot and
peas. I was pointing out that we had put
in a lot of butter in it and so it wasn't as bad as they thought it would be. We made sure that we visited everyone and I pointed out to my fellow volunteer that perhaps it
was appropriate that it was the two of us doing this, since we had started off
with the cans earlier in the evening. I
took over the counting duties for the seconds and then clean-up at the front
with stacking of the chairs and rolling them inside. All of us worked well together and we were
done by 8:15 pm, joking and laughing all the way through. It had been great to come after a few months
and see everyone, even if I had missed Marianne.
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