Chop, Chop

Fortunately it had been a relatively quiet week at work, with many folks adding an early extension to the upcoming July 4th holiday. Because somehow, my volunteering stints were all packed into the last week of our month-long community service extravaganza.

Since I've worked at the same company for a while, chances were that my projects would include some folks I knew; and that was true for both projects earlier this week (Sunday Friends and Castle Rock). Today's project was led by someone from our organization, and several of us joined in: Go, team!

The chefs for Loaves and Fishes Family Kitchen set us up with aprons, gloves, cutting boards, and sharp tools. Then we got to work.

One group would cut and season chickens. A lot of chickens. Another would prepare meatloaf. A third group cooked enchiladas. Somehow, trays of salad were prepared. I joined the crew prepping vegetables for a stew.

At the office, teams can sign up for sessions in an onsite “teaching kitchen.” It's a fully glass-enclosed space, and I admit that I often chuckle at my colleagues inside, many of whom have that deer-in-the-headlights look on their faces. [It's okay, that would be me, too.]

Anticipating the inefficiency our lack of experience would entail, a chef showed us this one weird trick for chopping off the broccoli florets: Hold the head upside down, by the stalk, and then whack-whack-whack the florets off with the knife. It takes a few seconds. [Wow.] Three of us could fill a large aluminum pan within a couple of minutes. Cauliflower was a bit more work; after removing the leaves and base, the best approach was to break off the florets by hand.

After we exhausted multiple cases of cruciferous veggies, we joined the rest of the crew working on potatoes (easy) and carrots (hard).

After we helped with cleanup, they estimated the number of meals we'd prepared, by type. Altogether: Five thousand. Five thousand? That's a lot of meals.

But there are so many people who need them.