Surviving Serve the City

I did it! Cooking for Serve the City is finally done! I am very proud to say that I oversaw the menu, grocery shopping and cooking for 1200 meals over six days. We only spent 1600 euros, which I have to say I am pretty impressed with -- that equals only 1.33 per meal.

Kyle was absolutely my right hand man during all the cooking. He was so wonderful about being willing to do anything, from hauling stuff to washing some really dirty dishes to chopping 36 onions. I was also really fortunate to have a wonderful couple, Jackie and Richard Griffin, help me out with almost every meal. Jackie was just the mother figure I needed around when the recipe wasn't going quite right and I needed some experienced cooking advice.

I have learned something about myself throughout the whole process:

--I am very bad about asking for help.

--When I am in a tough situation I just put my head down and keep going. Although I definitely got frustrated at points (and Kyle was my sounding board), for the most part when people asked how I was doing I don't think I could even honestly answer. I just felt like I was in a zone -- I knew what needed to get done and I just kept going through my lists and checking things off.

--I have no desire to ever cook for numbers that large again!

What a team!

What it looks like to mix Asian coleslaw for 500.

We had some great volunteers helping out. However, it was much more stressful than I had ever realized to keep ten people constantly busy with a task in the kitchen.

Chicken Pasta Salad for 200.

Men at work. Graham is chopping 168 scallions and Kyle and Richard are hard at work peeling and mincing 56 cloves of garlic.

What baked beans for 250 people look like. This pan filled up a whole industrial size oven -- and this was only half the recipe!