Feeding Dads and Granddads!!

OH BOY was that an early morning.  It's one thing to get up at 4:00 and wander around the house relaxing with a cup of coffee.  It's completely another animal to get ready and head out to the Elks Lodge at 5:00 am!!!  I may be getting too old for this!!!

This isn't the sun that was up ... it was the MOON as I walked through the door, my mind racing at what needed to be done first.  Here's the thing ... the ER person in charge of all these gatherings, is the newest person on the block every single year.  They don't know what's needed in the way of food, people or prep!  Instead of appointing someone with experience, they want to do it themselves.  I get that.

Here's my line of ovens that I would OH SO love to have.  I switched on the power and set the temps for only two things ... biscuits and sausage.  

Here's the problem on this day .... they didn't want to do all that work, so they shortened the menu almost in half.  What happens when you do that?  People eat MORE of what you put out on the table.  What happens when they do THAT?  You run out of everything, even though you have fewer people eating.  It's the law of nature ... and the Elks Lodge.

Eight items were pared down to four with pancakes being number one.  People don't load up on pancakes, they load up on sausage, which we promptly ran out of after the first 45 minutes.  Eggs were next, causing a frenzy of cracking pallets of eggs and using the mixer you see here to make scrambled eggs.  Those had to be cooked in frying pans on the stove by two people not used to doing that sort of thing.

Next to run out was the gravy, causing another panic since I really didn't have any extra sausage to put IN the gravy for flavor.  I finally relented with the promise that none of the kitchen crew would eat ANY sausage, leaving it for the crowd!  This was my breakfast ... half a biscuit and gravy.  By the time I was done, the runner had been to Smart and Final for the second time to pick up more groceries.

I was very lucky this time to only get one small burn on my arm.  That can't be said for the guy who grabbed a pan sitting on the table that had just come out of the oven.  I always yell HOT PAN, but he wasn't listening.  The screaming was a good indication of a bad burn.

Being the neat freak I am, this just made me crazy.  I cleaned up enough batter to make six pancakes and put down dishes to catch the excess.  As you can see, even that didn't work so well.  

The next thing I know, I look around (with about 45 minutes of serving time left) to find almost everyone had abandoned ship.  WHAT?  You actually left all this mess for US to clean up?  I've got to tell you, I wasn't all too happy about that.  Four of us ended up packaging up leftover food for the Homeless Shelter in town and cleaning up the entire place.  Yes, I had a LOT to say about THAT!!!

Did you know that dried pancake batter is like concrete??  Nothing would remove it from the counter.  I finally had to lay out wet towels for a full 30 minutes, trying to soften it up.

In the end, we served about 250 happy Dads, Kids and Moms who didn't have to cook, with not one complaint.    

Once home, I was exhausted ... more than usual for some reason.  Maybe because I was working on five hours sleep.  Anyway, I was excitedly greeted at the door by Mr. Cooper and we crashed on the couch for an hour.

Back to the land of the living, I worked on the first four rows of this lap quilt before ensconcing myself in front of the TV to watch the Reno Rodeo.  

That of course kept me up WAY too late yet again because the bull riding is always last.  I think this will be a two-cup-o-joe morning!!

Thank you all for the solar comments.  I'll get into that a little more tomorrow.  For now, I'll be on the couch!!