Never ceasing to be amazed.
Secrets Behind The Service
Last night was "Dinner and A Movie" night at the Gathering. To keep everyone on the same page, The Gathering is young adult get-together where we have a speaker (staff member A.K. employed by McLane church, same church I attend on Sunday's) and the Gathering Band performs each week and leads the group in awesome worship songs. I became part of the Creative Team this year, a team that organized unique and creative ideas for the event each week, to plan ahead and organize direction for this great Tuesday night happening.
Last week, A.K presented the idea of having a "end of the year" dinner for the Gathering. So we "cooked up" (no pun intended) a plan to serve a full pasta meal- salad, pasta, meatballs, bread, and the ever-popular dessert of choice- cookies. It was in no time we formulated a time schedule and in the blink of an eye it was Tuesday and I was on my way to Giant Eagle with A.K. to purchase the goods.
I love how funny it can be to walk in a grocery store and have no idea where thigs are at, but take educated guesses thanks to my previous expereience in a grocery store back home. At times I felt like I was the adopted daughter of A.K. as I followed him around and rattled off the list that was written down on my internal parchment AKA brain. "Go here" and "Don't forget" and so on. When we went to check out, there was no bagger present so I just started bagging. Ah, the memories swell back to me. As we were leaving, A.K told me "I was watching you and you really seemed like you were good at that, but then it dawned on me that you worked in a grocery store." He then asked me what I did at SNS and I responded with "A little bit of everything". Really, from stocking shelves to bagging groceries, to packaging grapes and mopping floors, or even picking up the office worker's food a few stores down in the plaza- my title might be "cashier" but my experience is all around the store. Anyway, back to the story!
Soon it was time to start setting up the cooking process. McLane Church isn't your typical mom and pop church with a little kitchen stored away in the back of the basement where all these amazing pies are produced. Sure, McLane probably does make terrific pies if they wanted, but between feeding a congregation of a thousand between Saturday night and Sunday morning services, they get down with the whole "mass production of food" bit.
Of course, we had some time to kill in between the water boiling and starting practically an hour early- but thanks to the food warmers, nothing went cold. (Except for when it sat out too long, of course). We were very blessed to have the head chef of the church, E, to come help us in our efforts and locate all the things in this makeshift kitchen of wonder. Mass appliances, makeshift tables, it's all a fun little mystery and system. The church is still being renevated because it was converted into a church after being an old Ames building, so everything isn't hardwood floors and random decorative lighting (although the church does a fantastic job right now with what they do have). But the kitchen fits the needs to feed and it helped us put on a meal for roughly 100 people. E was amazing, she's an awesome lady who is local and was more than willing to help us out. But along with her services came tricks of the trade that I love.
I'm always willing to learn more about cooking now n' days. Maybe it's a "coming of age" thing when pop-tarts aren't considered meals anymore and if you're going to fix a meal, let's make it a goody with all the fixins'. I intently followed E around the kitchen from one end to the other, fetching and pouring, stirring and salting. It would have been impossible without the help of her and the many other great people who helped us cook the meal. Here's a few tricks I learned from her in the kitchen that stuck with me:
1) If you can't get all the spagetti sauce out of the jar (like a giant container of Ragu), take it and spin it around in circles with your arm, causes the sauce to collect on the top of the container. (But just make sure the lid is on!)
2) Big pot that needs more leverage than just your two hands? Take a thick sock and cut of the toe portion and slide it on your forearm to serve as a hot pad so you can carry pans with your forearms more effectivly.
3) Add about a handful of sugar to a pot of water to speed up the boiling process.
4) If you rinse your spagetti with water after you've drained it, the sauce won't stick to it.
5) Have E and helpers and the job will run terrificly! Praise be to God! :)
At the end of the night, we did have plenty leftovers, which, it's always better to have more of than to have too little, or in the words of E "There is no such thing a too much food." Needless to say, a lot of people that attended the Gathering last night are now having pasta for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
On another note, finals week is approching with rapid fire so don't expect me to stop in a blog anytime soon, unless I have some free time on the weekend to stop in and confirm exisitence for a little while. I'll be heading home Thurs, Presentation at WS High School Friday, Presentation at E High School Monday, and then back to Shop N' Save Tuesday! Wow, where has the semester gone?
Peace out peeps - catch ya later, have a blessed day!
Oh- PS- there is roughly 2 feet of snow outside and more on the way :) (Pictures will be posted when the front leaves)
Last week, A.K presented the idea of having a "end of the year" dinner for the Gathering. So we "cooked up" (no pun intended) a plan to serve a full pasta meal- salad, pasta, meatballs, bread, and the ever-popular dessert of choice- cookies. It was in no time we formulated a time schedule and in the blink of an eye it was Tuesday and I was on my way to Giant Eagle with A.K. to purchase the goods.
I love how funny it can be to walk in a grocery store and have no idea where thigs are at, but take educated guesses thanks to my previous expereience in a grocery store back home. At times I felt like I was the adopted daughter of A.K. as I followed him around and rattled off the list that was written down on my internal parchment AKA brain. "Go here" and "Don't forget" and so on. When we went to check out, there was no bagger present so I just started bagging. Ah, the memories swell back to me. As we were leaving, A.K told me "I was watching you and you really seemed like you were good at that, but then it dawned on me that you worked in a grocery store." He then asked me what I did at SNS and I responded with "A little bit of everything". Really, from stocking shelves to bagging groceries, to packaging grapes and mopping floors, or even picking up the office worker's food a few stores down in the plaza- my title might be "cashier" but my experience is all around the store. Anyway, back to the story!
Soon it was time to start setting up the cooking process. McLane Church isn't your typical mom and pop church with a little kitchen stored away in the back of the basement where all these amazing pies are produced. Sure, McLane probably does make terrific pies if they wanted, but between feeding a congregation of a thousand between Saturday night and Sunday morning services, they get down with the whole "mass production of food" bit.
Of course, we had some time to kill in between the water boiling and starting practically an hour early- but thanks to the food warmers, nothing went cold. (Except for when it sat out too long, of course). We were very blessed to have the head chef of the church, E, to come help us in our efforts and locate all the things in this makeshift kitchen of wonder. Mass appliances, makeshift tables, it's all a fun little mystery and system. The church is still being renevated because it was converted into a church after being an old Ames building, so everything isn't hardwood floors and random decorative lighting (although the church does a fantastic job right now with what they do have). But the kitchen fits the needs to feed and it helped us put on a meal for roughly 100 people. E was amazing, she's an awesome lady who is local and was more than willing to help us out. But along with her services came tricks of the trade that I love.
I'm always willing to learn more about cooking now n' days. Maybe it's a "coming of age" thing when pop-tarts aren't considered meals anymore and if you're going to fix a meal, let's make it a goody with all the fixins'. I intently followed E around the kitchen from one end to the other, fetching and pouring, stirring and salting. It would have been impossible without the help of her and the many other great people who helped us cook the meal. Here's a few tricks I learned from her in the kitchen that stuck with me:
1) If you can't get all the spagetti sauce out of the jar (like a giant container of Ragu), take it and spin it around in circles with your arm, causes the sauce to collect on the top of the container. (But just make sure the lid is on!)
2) Big pot that needs more leverage than just your two hands? Take a thick sock and cut of the toe portion and slide it on your forearm to serve as a hot pad so you can carry pans with your forearms more effectivly.
3) Add about a handful of sugar to a pot of water to speed up the boiling process.
4) If you rinse your spagetti with water after you've drained it, the sauce won't stick to it.
5) Have E and helpers and the job will run terrificly! Praise be to God! :)
At the end of the night, we did have plenty leftovers, which, it's always better to have more of than to have too little, or in the words of E "There is no such thing a too much food." Needless to say, a lot of people that attended the Gathering last night are now having pasta for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
On another note, finals week is approching with rapid fire so don't expect me to stop in a blog anytime soon, unless I have some free time on the weekend to stop in and confirm exisitence for a little while. I'll be heading home Thurs, Presentation at WS High School Friday, Presentation at E High School Monday, and then back to Shop N' Save Tuesday! Wow, where has the semester gone?
Peace out peeps - catch ya later, have a blessed day!
Oh- PS- there is roughly 2 feet of snow outside and more on the way :) (Pictures will be posted when the front leaves)
posted by Lindsay K. at 7:29 AM
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