Happy Mother's Day -- Oops!!

 Of all the National Days there are to celebrate, this one is a biggie.  Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers out there!!  I hope you got a big bouquet of flowers and a nice dinner out.  

Speaking of dinner out, you can attend the brunch at my Elks Lodge for FREE!  To make it even nicer, you will be presented with a beautiful rose when you enter the building.  We go all out for the Moms.

THAT is why yesterday was so much fun.  Guess who has to COOK the brunch!  Lucky for me, there's lots of help this year, but all of them are inexperienced with this spectacular event.

As you know, communication is a must.  We seem to be a little lacking in that department, which as you might imagine, causes a few problems.

The food order was made ... but on the same scale and menu as last year.  Things were supposed to change in that respect, including the fact that we are expecting 500 people instead of 300.  It seems someone forgot to tell someone else.  Oops!

I arrived at the Lodge at 7:30 to begin the prep.  The menu includes pastries, fruit cups, scrambled eggs, Denver omelet casseroles, hash browns, sausage, sliced ham, biscuits with sausage gravy, along with waffles smothered in strawberries and whipped cream.  Add to that coffee, which by the way no one knew how to make, orange juice and milk, followed by CAKE!!!  It's a FEAST!

I panned sausage while the MEN cut and sliced the hams.  I'm allergic to washing that huge slicer.  The hash browns are freeze dried, so we added water and got them in the walk-in fridge.  I had the girls cut up the pastries and start fruit processing.  Wait ... we couldn't find any fruit cups.  That meant a frantic trip to town.

The sausage was cooked for the gravy and the Denver omelet eggs started to take shape.  Only wait yet again ... there was no cut up ham, onions or green peppers for that.  Oops!  I don't know who was responsible for the order, but it wasn't me, so I breathed a sigh of relief.  

The casseroles were instantly switched to Mexican Eggs because we scrounged up enough ingredients for that.  That's when I remembered the Bloody Mary mix for the bar.  Excuse me ... did anyone get that?  Nope ... so there was a frantic search for tomato juice.  Saint Anthony Saint Anthony, please come around.  Something's been lost and can't be found.  There was another trip to the store.

Once we got the tables set up, we moved on to chafing dishes and plates, but forgot the silverware.  This was becoming pretty comical until I remembered the final piece of the puzzle.  Did anyone order the cakes from Costco???  For which you need a two day lead?  This was a BIG OOPS!

A resounding NO was heard across the building.  Oh good grief ... someone run to Costco and pick up three generic cakes please!!

I left three hours later after writing down exactly everything I have to do first thing this morning at 6:00.  Hopefully I didn't forget anything BIG!!

I'm praying the Oven Gods look kindly on me and I don't BURN anything on this beautiful sunny Mother's Day!