Penny In The Kitchen

Last week I was given a new responsibility. I am now Friday Lunch Committee Chair for the Las Vegas, Nevada LDS Institute. So every Friday my job is to prepare lunch for 110 or so people.
I just survived my first Friday Lunch.
I focused all week on preparing. I went through all the cupboards, seeing what I had to use because we're trying to not store food. I found a ton of rice. So I decided to make sweet and sour meatballs over rice. It wasn't until later I realized I'd need a side dish to go with it, so I added an Asian styled salad with mandarin-vinegarette dressing. For all of you who were eating at Friday Forum here is a secret: I have never made either of these dishes before. Really. I have no idea what I was thinking! When cooking for a lot of people you usually want to make something easy that you've done before and know people will like. Not me. I decided to go a more stressful route. I cook often, have helped at Friday Lunch for years, know what works, and on my first chance I risk completely blowing it by doing something I've never tried, and that hasn't been made for Friday Lunch before. Not the smartest of moves.
So Friday I was nervous. I'm amazed I wasn't in full panic mode. I arrived at the Institute at 9:00am. Overkill. I wanted to have a committee meeting at 10:30am (having called all my volunteers and asking them to come to the meeting), so I prepared and waited for my committee to show up. No one did. At least not until about 11:00-11:30, where I grabbed people from the halls, bullied them into signing up specifically for my committee. Then it got moving. Tables and chairs went up (slower than I'd like because boys like to goof off and get distracted) and the cooking began.
Kitchen disasters: 1)All the large pots in the institute kitchen will scorch because of the electric stove. This makes it incredibly difficult when making large amounts of pasta and RICE!! So the use of 3 small pots that are SUPPOSED to be used on electric stoves replaced the big pot, making things messier, more difficult, and led to a gross burning smell throughout the building. 2) 650 meatballs will not fit into a single slow roaster and even if they do, they will not heat up in 1/2 an hour. Lesson learned. Fix: take the roasting pan out of the roaster, throw it in the oven, and pray that no one will get a cold meatball. IT worked. Thank heavens! 3) Not having a kitchen that is stocked the way you wanted. Needed vinegar, rummaged through the whole kitchen, found 3 different types of vinegar and played chemist to get the flavor I wanted.
Once everything was on the table things were fine. Ok lie. When everything was on the table and people were going through the line, things were fine. The worst part was waiting between putting everything on the table and waiting for the class to get out and start eating. That quiet between storms is nerve racking. IT gives you just enough time to think about everything that could go wrong and there is no longer time to fix it. I can fix anything as long as I have enough time.
My mind was put to rest when everyone started to line up and eat. It brought me back to the moment and gave me something to focus on.
Everything after that went well. People enjoyed the food, most liked how it was different, there were very few leftovers, and clean up was quick. I ran around and told people what I needed to be done. I found that if you ask it will happen. I wish I would have asked more last semester.
I think my first experience went well. There are many more to come. Hopefully they'll be just as smooth or even smoother.