It Wasn't Me!!

 Mother's Day was a resounding success.  Our lodge now has 1600 members, up quite a bit from the previous year of less than 1,000.  Cooking for that many people can be daunting.  It takes a lot of preparation that never materializes.  Why you ask?  Because ever year there is a new "leader" and a group of people who have never done this before.  Sadly, they don't even know to ask.

So here goes ... the calm before the storm as I wait at 5:30 for Gravy Guy to show up and open the door.  Over the years three of us have done all the cooking.  Casserole Guy, Gravy Guy and me.  First things first, we need food.  It wasn't me that they asked about that important part ... how much to order.  Every year the Manager just orders what he did last year.  THAT was a big mistake.  We have almost twice the people.

We'll go item by item.  The second we get there, I throw out the pans for the Denver Omelette Casseroles to be built.  Done!!  These are eggs, hamburger with taco sauce, onions, rotel tomatoes and cheese.  Doesn't sound too Denver-ish because they didn't order ANY of the ingredients.  We scrambled through the pantry and came up with MEXICAN casseroles instead.  We made TEN big restaurant pans and stacked them up for cooking.  

Next ... hash browns.  They come freeze dried in boxes that you add water to.  Someone forgot you only add water to the line instead of the top of the box.  It wasn't me.  Soggy hash browns are bad.  Although I cooked all TEN restaurant pans in the ovens on high heat, they were still soggy and one by one, had to be finished on the flattop.  Kudos to the guy who got THAT job!!

Next ... scrambled eggs.  We usually cook huge bags of eggs in big pans of boiling water.  They come out perfect.  All we could find from the order was cardboard cartons full of FROZEN eggs.  There was a frantic rush to thaw them out before trying to cook them on the flattop also.  

It was a big failure!!  My quick solution was to put them in ten MORE big restaurant pans and cook them in the oven.  Boy was THAT fun ... anyone ever lifted a huge pan full of liquid eggs into the very tall ovens?  Stir baby, STIR!!

Next ... I threw in the even bigger pans of sliced ham ... always the easiest to heat.  That was followed by 13 restaurant sheet pans full of sausage.  

In the meantime, Gravy Guy forgot to turn the fire off when he made the gravy and it burned.  Thankfully that wasn't me.  OMG ... anyone smelled burned gravy lately??  They put it out on the table, but I made them take it back.  We have plenty of packages ... MAKE MORE GRAVY!!!

While all that was going on, I whipped out ten pans of biscuits, followed by ten pans of waffles.  Unfortunately none of that can be done ahead of time, so I scramble like crazy to get stuff in the ovens.  

It's a balancing act,  making sure something is ready every time they yell from the buffet table.  I had to laugh a couple of times when the dishwashing kitchen crew walked by and told me I need to get all that stuff in the ovens.  No ... this isn't a cook it all at once deal for when you have a party ... this is a FOUR HOUR MARATHON of eating.

And then it happened.  We ran out of sausage and hash browns in the first two hours.  That's what happens when no one asks about how much to order.  I figured they had it handled, but I was wrong.  We sent them running to the store for more while I stirred those eggs-in-a-pan like crazy.  If you've never tried baking eggs, my advice is DON'T.  

Here's the buffet table after the first two hours, just before the local churches let out and the next big crowd comes in.  That's funny ... I smell something burning.  In unison, they said "it's the gravy".

The stats:    10 casserole pans, 10 pans of scrambled eggs, 13 pans of sausage, 4 pans of ham, 10 pans of waffles, 10 pans of hash browns, 10 pans biscuits, 11 pans of fruit cups and 8 platters of pastries.  

We fed 525 people.  Last year we had 300, so no wonder we ran out of food.  But WAIT ... I STILL SMELL SOMETHING and it's NOT GRAVY!!  We have 45 minutes left to serve food, so I go to investigate.  SOMEONE (it wasn't me) did NOT put water in the biscuit chafing dish like I told them.  The biscuits were smoking and literally seconds from bursting into flames.  

GUYS ... THE BISCUITS ARE ON FIRE!!!  Sadly, that was the last pan I had and so the final people coming for those biscuits and gravy were sadly disappointed.  I just shook my head!!

 

Needless to say, I was exhausted and overheated by there time I got home.  I wanted to laugh, but I was too tired.  Those ovens are all convection and HOT!!!!  Amazingly, I didn't get burned this time, I think for the first time ever!  

THIS time I had a nice little talk with the guy who will be in charge NEXT year.   He's going to call me!!!