Cooking for 321

I (Thea) decided last week that before I left, I wanted to be the cook for a meal. I have been assistant cook about 30 times this year, and in some cases even given the task to finish cooking when the cook had to leave early. I asked for my assignment to be on a "long" day, so that I would have plenty of time to prepare, and also when there were enough volunteers available so that I would have help with chopping and clean up.

When the schedule came out on Monday, and I was assigned as the cook for the Thursday meal. My first task was to go into the freezer and see what sort of meat and frozen food was available. There was a large amount of Italian sausage and lots of frozen french fries, so I decide to make sausage, pepper and onions, fries, fruit cocktail, and have optional tossed salad for those who like a healthier side dish. Of course, there would also be dessert and drink.

Wednesday I got the meat out to thaw and started looking at the bread as it arrived for suitable rolls. Early Thursday I laid out the cutting boards and peppers, so that as soon as Mass was over I could get started. I had two high school juniors, Maggie and Grace, as my sous chefs. We spent about two hours chopping the peppers and onions, unpacking the meat, and mixing the canned fruit for the fruit cocktail. I have been working at the Catholic Workers garden in our neighborhood, and the head gardener brought me several beautiful heads of leaf lettuce, just picked Thursday morning. It was enough for 100 side salads.

I had no idea how long the fries needed to be cooked, or at what temperature, so around 2:00 I put a pan of fries in the oven. Maggie's job was to do a taste test every 3 minutes starting with 12 minutes to determine when the fries were cooked through. It seemed 25 minutes were necessary. Also at 2 I began frying the peppers and onions in the tilt skillet. Once they were finished, I started frying the sausage. I wanted to have 200 sausages fried by the time the meal began at 4:30. In between frying, I had Maggie and Grace get the "side doors" ready--take out orders of the meal for guests that weren't allowed to eat inside or that had family members that couldn't come to the Inn for the meal.

I had 3 goals for the meal. First, I wanted the guests to have tasty food that they would like. A good indication of the quality of the meal is what is returned on the plate to the dishwasher. I could tell virtually no meat or fries were being rejected. Secondly, I wanted to have enough food for the guests. I had predicted 325 guests; we had 321. I had actually cooked 370 sausages, so I knew I was safe. Thirdly, I wanted to be able to keep up for the demand for food throughout the meal. Doing this can be tricky, because I wanted to keep serving hot food rather than cook everything ahead and then serve it. I wanted the food at 5:45 to be as fresh and hot as the food at 4:30. I was able to accomplish that goal as well.

Because I had made so much extra food, I decided to put some of the leftovers into takeout bowls and distribute it to guests at the end of the meal. Apparently the meal was too popular and a very large crowd assembled when it was announced there would be "seconds." At this point I only had Maggie as my assistant, and we were working as fast as we could to get the food to the door for distribution. However, by 6:08 the 25 take out bowls were on a cart to be given out. The only thing left to do was to clean the multitude of pans I had used and get the tilt skillet back to its original pristine condition.

I thanked my assistants, then went home and ate my supper. It was NOT sausage, pepper and onions!