Dinner At The Wells Street Cafe

Location: Breaking Bread Ministries/LaSalle Street Church

Date: Wednesday, December 02, 2015; 5:45-8:15 pm

It had been 2 months since I had been here and so was looking forward to this evening.  It was nice to see some of the regulars like little Hannah and John already here.  Marianne greeted me with a hug and then assigned me my duty, which was slicing “gyros” - though not in a cool way where the meat revolves on a spit.  There were several pans with thick slabs of meat and couple of volunteers were already slicing them as thin as possible. I got hold of a knife and started slicing a slab.  It was a big one and it took me some time to get through it, to the extent that I had some cramps in my hand at the end.  After arranging the slices on a tray, I was glad to hand over the duties of slicing the last one to a new enthusiastic volunteer who was excited at being picked.  Aah, perks of being a regular.

The menu for this evening

There were a few new volunteers and I learned that they had found ‘Breaking Bread’ online through the ‘GCFD’ website. Marianne said that because all the places where the people could volunteer are arranged alphabetically, 'Breaking Bread' were at the higher end and thus people came here first.  Plus it was the holiday season and people are usually in a more “giving” mood.  Chef Dan and his wife were nowhere to be seen and I thought that we had lost one more chef.  Marianne said that they were just away and one of our regular volunteers, Adam, who is also a chef, had cooked today.  The menu was “Gyro on homemade Pita” – I was impressed by the homemade part - with “Tzatziki sauce”, rice with “Green Peas and Cheese sauce” and then “Blueberry Crumble” with “applesauce” on top. I wasn't sure about the “applesauce” but the rest looked like a solid menu. 

There were a lot of volunteers and so I could hang out in the "mancave" - as Marianne calls it - with John, Joe and Mike.  Joe was leaving Chicago to start a new job and I for one would be sad to see a familiar face go.  I joined a spirited discussion on “Pot” and was hoping that Marianne, who now was giving the new volunteers a welcome speech, wouldn't hear us.  After the prayer, we assigned duties and I elected to serve.  Before we started I went over to chat with Phil who was playing the piano and he asked if I sang or played, at which I said that I was “tone deaf”.  He said that he was looking for someone to sing and I asked about the usual lady who sings the “Beatles”. She wasn't here yet, though he said that she wanted to do "Kiss from a Rose" today, which would be terrific. 

We lined up and my task was to start the plating with “pita” and then piling two huge strips of “gyro” on top.  I would then pass the plate further along for the rest of the stuff.  We started serving and it moved at a fair pace as usual.  Once the first wave was done I took over the tallying duties during seconds.  There were a lot of people who came back and we were able to give away almost everything.  I went over to stack the chairs and wipe down the tables, with a little boy following me.  He really wanted to help with the wiping and so I let him do it.  We were done soon and after bidding Joe goodbye I told Marianne that since this was a 5-Wednesday month, I could possibly come on the last Wednesday if she needed me.