Dinner At The Wells Street Cafe

Location: Breaking Bread Ministries/LaSalle Street Church

Date: Wednesday, September 16, 2015; 5:45-8:15 pm

I had missed my shift on the 1^st Wednesday and would be missing the next two first Wednesday's as well. So I asked Marianne if I could come any other week and she said that she could use me this week.  I arrived to see that there were no other volunteers around and it was just me and her. She said that this was it for now.  Fortunately, a lot of regulars arrived including Hannah and Joe.  In fact Marianne said that this was an “All Star Crew”.  My next surprise was learning that we now had a new chef!  It seems that Chef Dani had started a new job and so it was our 3^rd chef this year. His name was Dan and he seemed like a nice guy, and was here with his wife Kathy.

Today's menu

He put me on opening cans of tomatoes and tomato sauce, of which there were several.  I opened them all and collected the contents in a big vessel.  All of this was eventually going into a meat sauce.  The other things on the menu were spaghetti, peas and carrots in cream sauce and pretzel roll with garlic butter. Next, I opened up cans of the said peas that were going in with the carrots, as Hannah and another volunteer cut the pretzel bread and put butter on it.  I went outside and saw that one of our regular guests was there and he said that he hadn’t been here for a few weeks.  Today, the menu had been posted for the guests to see as they came in and he and I went to take a look.  “No meat”, he said.  Well, I said that the meat was in the sauce.  “No meat”, he repeated and laughed.  I left to finish up in kitchen but not before he asked how to pronounce my name and practiced.

I went around refilling water while the other volunteers were making progress on the food.  Since everyone was a veteran, Marianne did not have to give a speech.  She was however handing out presents like aprons, t-shirts and mugs.  I then went around and put plastic knives and forks on the tables.  We were using all disposables today since the dishwasher wasn’t working.  Chef asked if I could help chop the salad and I said that I was bad with knives and would probably end up cutting myself.  He laughed and his wife took over.  I helped plate the salads and then we were ready to go.  I was plating today and would be putting the pretzel rolls on the plate after it came to me, already with Pasta and creamed veggies on it.  It looked like we had a lot of food today, which was great. 

After the first round, the guests lined up and I was maintaining the count.  We had a lot of people come and since there was so much food, we were being generous with our portions.  In fact, Marianne was saying that until they stay stop, we would keep serving on the plate.  I went over to stack the chairs and help with the cleanup.  Since we did not have real plates, it was a fast turnaround.  I said bye to Marianne and left.  It seems like there are a lot of changes happening, but she is the constant.  She had asked earlier if I was sad and I had said that happiness and sadness are overrated in their longevity. They really are.