Location: Nineteenth Century Club
Date: Friday, January 24, 2014; 6:00-10:00 pm
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| The rooms were lovely |
The only time I had volunteered in the suburbs had been the Donut project to support ‘Wonder Works’ children’s museum in Oak Park. This was another chance to go out there…though not for the Donuts.
According to the description on One Brick website, “Wonder Works is 6,400 square feet of fun, a place of creative play for
kids birth to age eight. Located in Oak Park, the children's museum helps kids,
their parents and caregivers unleash their imaginations through art,
performance, design, building and more.” We were going to volunteer for the Trivia night, held to
raise money for the museum. Wilson
picked me up in the evening and we battled through snow and traffic to arrive
there just on time. It was a very cold night and we rushed inside the exquisite
looking building. Plus it was
beautiful on the inside, old fashioned, with some nice antique styled
furniture.
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| My lasagna rolls |
I spotted my old buddy Charles
Paul in one of the rooms, as well as our EM Kinga and other regulars like Dave
and Rich. Our first task was to
get the food from the van outside, in to the kitchen. It was going to be all finger food today, with mini-burgers,
Phyllo-dough filled spinach etc. Our site representative was Jessica, and she was directing the traffic
in the kitchen. She asked if I could help make Lasagna rolls. So I would be responsible for some
exotic sounding hors d’oeuvres. Ok then. I mixed cream cheese with two eggs and then Jessica
added salt, pepper, Italian seasoning and Parmesan. I mixed it all together and then took some lasagna sheets
and put the mixture on top of them, before rolling them to form a…well lasagna
roll. The next step was to put a
bit of marinara sauce on top of the rolls, followed by a bit of shredded
mozzarella. I got down to it and
since I was being a bit generous with the fillings, ran out of the mixture. I had seen what Jessica had done and so
was able to replicate her “magic powder
mix”. The ovens were hot and
ready to go and before putting the pans inside, I suggested that we put some
oil under the rolls, so as to prevent sticking. Wow, all those hours of watching ‘Food Network’ was paying off!
One of the volunteers working
with us said that she was scared of using a knife and did not want to handle
them. I could sympathize with her,
since I am convinced that I may someday do some damage to my fingers while
chopping. Fortunately, we also had
another volunteer Amy, who had taken knife skill classes and was able to help
out. The food was coming out and
going upstairs where the actual event was being conducted in an
auditorium. Beside our station, Rich and Dave were making cheese stuffed dates as well as bacon wrapped dates
and doing a good job of it as well.
Jessica came and told us that the food was being consumed fast, meaning that we needed to improvise and make something else that we had not planned for. She asked me to make a pizza from pizza
dough. Let me repeat so that I
believe what I just wrote. Jessica
asked me – not to order pizza – but make it from the scratch using pizza
dough. Seriously, ok then.
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| Making pizza |
Amy asked me if I “Cook very much”. I said that “very” is a strong word, “much”
is stronger and “cook” is a stretch. Its not that I am a bad cook or that I
dislike cooking. On the contrary,
I am halfway decent and love cooking for others. I just don’t like cooking for myself, which is most often
the case. I took the pizza dough
and first thing was to roll it out, so as to get an even thin crust. One thing was certain though, I would
not be tossing it up like one sees in the videos. The problem was the lack of a roller and I ended up using a
glass vase to get the job done the best that I could. I then had to make mini pizzas and used a plastic cup to cut
through the dough and make individual sized pizzas; in fact breaking one cup in the process. I had forgotten to
put flour on the cutting board and so the pizza circles were sticking. Some suggested that I give up and roll
again, but with some patience I managed to remove them from the board. Charles Paul was adding his own
encouragement by saying, “Never give up,
never surrender”. Damn
right! After putting those circles
in the pan, I added flour and re-rolled and re-cut the remaining dough. I repeated this process 4 times, but
the dough didn’t appear to be shrinking.
As much as it felt like a never-ending hole, I was finally done with the dough
and now it was time for the toppings.
I added cream cheese on it and Jessica came and added zucchini and
garlic before popping it in the oven. Rich had started washing the dishes even though there was a functional dishwasher. When I pointed it out, he said that he was seeking perfection. In the meanwhile, real pizza had been ordered and now I was certain no
one would look at my sorry pizza! Amy
was working on the sliders, trying to make them stretch by cutting in
half. We did the same with the
real pizza that had just come in. Looks like either there had been some miscalculation, or the
people were loading up for a winter hibernation!
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| The game was afoot! |
All the food had been served and
there was nothing much that we could do downstairs. So I went up to see the trivia and saw a room full of
people, with several tables
having teams of 6 players each.
There were a total of 9 rounds and the 4th round was about to
start. Wilson, who had been
managing the upstairs, said that he could get some of the answers from the
earlier rounds; though I would I have to see it to believe him. The topic was music and I fancied my
chances of guessing some of the answers.
It started with 80s songs that I recognized and then led to visuals
of some musical instruments that I had never seen, including one which was the
inspiration for Homer’s ‘Iliad’! Besides that there were questions on
band logos, including a joyous scream when the ‘Van
Halen’ logo was displayed. Wow,
these guys were real fans, even cheering when results for the round were announced.
I watched for some time and then
went about collecting empty plates and dropping in garbage. I came back to the kitchen and Kinga
dispatched me to the coat-check room.
The game was running late and nobody was coming for their coats. Plus the coats had been neatly arranged
and so there was nothing for me to do.
Wilson came over to give me company and we chatted about the suburban
projects and how they may enable the volunteers in those areas who want to help out. Charles Paul came over, which
meant that we were entertained for the rest of the time that we were there. The quiz was still on, but two ladies
came to get their coats. They said
that they had to get up early, though I did ask them if they would have still
left if they were winning. They
laughed and left and now it was time for us to do the same. Jessica brought over one of her other
volunteers to relieve us and so we collected our things and went out in the
cold. The rest of our team was
going for a drink, though Wilson and I decided to take a rain check. Both of us had a big day coming up with
3 projects, and which would be more than 12 hours long. Hopefully it would not involve me making
pizza...or lasagna rolls!
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