Those who worked in West Virginia to prepare meals for youth mission teams who repaired houses are back safely. Food orders for the meals arrived on time (most of the time) and nobody fell off a cliff! (Check the WV trip news for 2008 to read about that last one!) Special thanks to Carl and Pat Lotz who plan the menus, order the food, and, essentially orchestrate the whole project--although most of those on the teams have worked several years on this project, so they've had lots of practice.
Next Mission Trip:
A day trip to the Sheila Dennis Shelter in Philadelphia on Saturday, August 29. Leave Covenant at 8:30 and return about 2:30. (This is the shelter where in June a birthday party was prepared for all the women there.) The team, led by Richard Smith, will prepare lunch for the residents. Even though there won't be a party this time, having a group of friendly people serve you a delicious lunch makes for a great day! Call Covenant Presbyterian Church if you'd like more information or to sign up to join the group: 610-648-0707
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Day 15: Saturday July 4, 2009
Since everyone is packing to leave, once again breakfast is quiet. Just cereal, juice, fruit and yes pizza.
Pat and I have packed many of the items we brought with us to make the job easier.
I have made a list for Norm as to what he is to bring home to me at the end of next week. Norm is a site coordinator for all three weeks who has offered to run the griddle next week so we can continue my menu.
Mary, Mollie, Betty and Makenzie have left for home. Pat and I will be soon behind them. I just have to review procedures for next week with one of the interns who knows the woman that will be kitchen manager next week. However Bonnie, the school employee kitchen person will keep every thing organized.
Oh yes, I have to file this email from the school’s principal’s office. My last for this adventure.
Pat and I have packed many of the items we brought with us to make the job easier.
I have made a list for Norm as to what he is to bring home to me at the end of next week. Norm is a site coordinator for all three weeks who has offered to run the griddle next week so we can continue my menu.
Mary, Mollie, Betty and Makenzie have left for home. Pat and I will be soon behind them. I just have to review procedures for next week with one of the interns who knows the woman that will be kitchen manager next week. However Bonnie, the school employee kitchen person will keep every thing organized.
Oh yes, I have to file this email from the school’s principal’s office. My last for this adventure.
Day 14: Friday July 3, 2009
The count down to the end is near. I thought it was only Pat and I with two weeks under our belts. But the schedule is so foreign to our normal schedules that everyone is on the count down.
In many ways this week has almost been strange. Again the breakfast hour was stretched thin which deceives me. Even though I am outside and everyone passes the griddle I am working, it seems very few are coming to breakfast. That is until I get to go inside and find the dining room a filled as ever.
Friday we serve everything that is left over. Creamed dried beef, potatoes, cinnamon rolls, and biscuits. And French toast again fresh from the griddle.
Today we do not have to build sandwiches for lunches. No lunch tomorrow.
Back at the Inn today by 8:30, Again time to rest.
Oh of interest, yesterday someone tried to jump off the famous route 19 New river gorge bridge. The police closed down the bridge about 7 a.m. If you have enough guts to actually jump, then you should have enough guts to face life. The National Park Police eventually subdued him with a taser.
The town (actually called a city) of Gaulley Bridge is preparing for the Fourth of July celebration. A marathon gospel concert outdoors near the river Gaulley.
Free until 3:30 today, I head back for my last hours at the museum mentioned in earlier emails. It is not a priority for them so if we go back in future years it will be there for me. It is years of work. However now I can turn to researching the timeline for some of the processes and equipment I found in their basement.
Dinner is chili, build it yourself tacos and pizza. In short teen food. When I put together the menu every item in stock has multiple uses. The cream of chicken soup on Monday became the gravy over the chicken on Tuesday, etc., etc. Fridays leftover pizza is then served for breakfast on Saturday. They love it.
In many ways this week has almost been strange. Again the breakfast hour was stretched thin which deceives me. Even though I am outside and everyone passes the griddle I am working, it seems very few are coming to breakfast. That is until I get to go inside and find the dining room a filled as ever.
Friday we serve everything that is left over. Creamed dried beef, potatoes, cinnamon rolls, and biscuits. And French toast again fresh from the griddle.
Today we do not have to build sandwiches for lunches. No lunch tomorrow.
Back at the Inn today by 8:30, Again time to rest.
Oh of interest, yesterday someone tried to jump off the famous route 19 New river gorge bridge. The police closed down the bridge about 7 a.m. If you have enough guts to actually jump, then you should have enough guts to face life. The National Park Police eventually subdued him with a taser.
The town (actually called a city) of Gaulley Bridge is preparing for the Fourth of July celebration. A marathon gospel concert outdoors near the river Gaulley.
Free until 3:30 today, I head back for my last hours at the museum mentioned in earlier emails. It is not a priority for them so if we go back in future years it will be there for me. It is years of work. However now I can turn to researching the timeline for some of the processes and equipment I found in their basement.
Dinner is chili, build it yourself tacos and pizza. In short teen food. When I put together the menu every item in stock has multiple uses. The cream of chicken soup on Monday became the gravy over the chicken on Tuesday, etc., etc. Fridays leftover pizza is then served for breakfast on Saturday. They love it.
Friday, July 03, 2009
Day 13: Thursday July 2, 2009
If you read last weeks blog you know today’s breakfast is pancakes. We are ready before 7:30 our starting time to serve. The kids who are coming in for breakfast look worse than they did yesterday. And again they straggle in over the full hour. But they are loaded up and out to the job sites by eight o’clock.
I have the standard administrative items to take care of on Wednesdays. Food delivery time, pay the bakery, etc.
The rest of the day today is to rest. Mary however heads out to visit some of the work sites. It takes her hours before she is back.
At two o’clock I head to the Foodland for a few items and then go to the school to check out my food delivery. At 3:30 I pick up Pat and she starts the soup for tonight’s salad bar.
Mary, Mollie, Betty and Makenzie arrive at four and we have everything set up and ready to serve by four-thirty.
The groups are back a little earlier than usual but the first person through the salad bar is only 10 minutes before the five o’clock salad bar opening. Dinner is good, just ask anyone. Dessert is a small brownie or a large square of cake. Want to guess what most boys took.
As for me, I now have the realization that Pat and I have one more day before we can head home. I am ready, almost looking forward to it.
I have the standard administrative items to take care of on Wednesdays. Food delivery time, pay the bakery, etc.
The rest of the day today is to rest. Mary however heads out to visit some of the work sites. It takes her hours before she is back.
At two o’clock I head to the Foodland for a few items and then go to the school to check out my food delivery. At 3:30 I pick up Pat and she starts the soup for tonight’s salad bar.
Mary, Mollie, Betty and Makenzie arrive at four and we have everything set up and ready to serve by four-thirty.
The groups are back a little earlier than usual but the first person through the salad bar is only 10 minutes before the five o’clock salad bar opening. Dinner is good, just ask anyone. Dessert is a small brownie or a large square of cake. Want to guess what most boys took.
As for me, I now have the realization that Pat and I have one more day before we can head home. I am ready, almost looking forward to it.
Day 12: Wednesday July 1, 2009
The campers have the afternoon off. They work the morning and then are free until ten tonight. To make this possible they have their praise service at eight a.m. right after breakfast.
But right now at 6:30 we have no takers for breakfast except a small group of adults that are always early for breakfast. In fact it is six-fifty before we get any campers through the door. And it is a very slow trickle right up to our seven thirty cut off for breakfast. They all look tired.
Some raft, some swim, some picnic this afternoon.
Mary, Mollie, Betty and Makenzie head to Beckley about twenty miles away to take the coal mine tour. An underground tour that is fascinating. Of course it’s a cool 50 or so degrees inside so jackets are required.
Pat and Carl went their own way. As a result I have a bone to pick with Kathy Southerland next time I see her. Last week she and Rich went to Greenbrier about two hours away. We of course are heading for Greenbrier. I have to admit it is not quite two hours travel. We arrive in time for the 1:30 tour of the bunkers. But it is only noon. There is a McDonalds just down the street, but we opt to have lunch in the hotel Café. Ten times the potential McDonald’s bill. But it is a once in a lifetime experience. The ninety-minute bunker tour is very interesting. They tell us it is now the bunker used to store company records. They also talk about how the bunker was hidden in plain site. Hummm!
Pat and Carl are just finishing dinner in the Glen Ferris dinning room when in come the rest of our group. So Pat and I sit with them as they order dinner. The conversation eventually leads to how each of the couples met. Interesting.
But right now at 6:30 we have no takers for breakfast except a small group of adults that are always early for breakfast. In fact it is six-fifty before we get any campers through the door. And it is a very slow trickle right up to our seven thirty cut off for breakfast. They all look tired.
Some raft, some swim, some picnic this afternoon.
Mary, Mollie, Betty and Makenzie head to Beckley about twenty miles away to take the coal mine tour. An underground tour that is fascinating. Of course it’s a cool 50 or so degrees inside so jackets are required.
Pat and Carl went their own way. As a result I have a bone to pick with Kathy Southerland next time I see her. Last week she and Rich went to Greenbrier about two hours away. We of course are heading for Greenbrier. I have to admit it is not quite two hours travel. We arrive in time for the 1:30 tour of the bunkers. But it is only noon. There is a McDonalds just down the street, but we opt to have lunch in the hotel Café. Ten times the potential McDonald’s bill. But it is a once in a lifetime experience. The ninety-minute bunker tour is very interesting. They tell us it is now the bunker used to store company records. They also talk about how the bunker was hidden in plain site. Hummm!
Pat and Carl are just finishing dinner in the Glen Ferris dinning room when in come the rest of our group. So Pat and I sit with them as they order dinner. The conversation eventually leads to how each of the couples met. Interesting.
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Day 11: Tuesday June 30, 2009
The normal routine to set up for breakfast, serve Egg McMuffins.
Today Mary has to bake the cinnamon rolls by 6:30 when we start serving breakfast and then go on and bake one hundred biscuits for the strawberry shortcake.
Of course after breakfast half the group builds sandwiches and the other half cuts strawberries.
We head back to the Inn for an hour to rest. At ten in the morning we shuffle cars at Hawk’s Nest State Park so we can start the rail trail hike with this weeks crew. The walk is tradition. Everyone except Pat walk the two-mile trail. This time the pace is slower while Mary and Betty admire the variety of plants and try to identify them. Mollie and Makenzie sets the pace way ahead. We meet Pat at the bottom and then take the gondola up to the hotel at State Park. We then all enjoy lunch in the “Rivers Restaurant” with the view of the river below. We can see all the way to the bridge crossing the gorge at Fayetteville, which is almost fifteen miles away. We are done and still have two hours to rest before preparing tonight’s dinner.
Tuesday’s dinner is one of the bigger dinners we serve. Baked chicken on top of rice pilaf along with glazed carrots.
Each week we always have some campers who need special handling. This week we have a girl just diagnosed with diabetes before coming to Gauley Bridge. We are adapting are items so she can count and control her carbs and sugar.
Tuesday is a snack night, but for the first time in years very few show up for nachos tonight. I am beginning to think these kids a weird.
Today Mary has to bake the cinnamon rolls by 6:30 when we start serving breakfast and then go on and bake one hundred biscuits for the strawberry shortcake.
Of course after breakfast half the group builds sandwiches and the other half cuts strawberries.
We head back to the Inn for an hour to rest. At ten in the morning we shuffle cars at Hawk’s Nest State Park so we can start the rail trail hike with this weeks crew. The walk is tradition. Everyone except Pat walk the two-mile trail. This time the pace is slower while Mary and Betty admire the variety of plants and try to identify them. Mollie and Makenzie sets the pace way ahead. We meet Pat at the bottom and then take the gondola up to the hotel at State Park. We then all enjoy lunch in the “Rivers Restaurant” with the view of the river below. We can see all the way to the bridge crossing the gorge at Fayetteville, which is almost fifteen miles away. We are done and still have two hours to rest before preparing tonight’s dinner.
Tuesday’s dinner is one of the bigger dinners we serve. Baked chicken on top of rice pilaf along with glazed carrots.
Each week we always have some campers who need special handling. This week we have a girl just diagnosed with diabetes before coming to Gauley Bridge. We are adapting are items so she can count and control her carbs and sugar.
Tuesday is a snack night, but for the first time in years very few show up for nachos tonight. I am beginning to think these kids a weird.
Day 10: Monday June 29, 2009
The new crew hits the ground running. Pat and I are in the kitchen by 5:30 in the morning. I distribute the items from the freezer and refrigerator so when Mollie, Mary, Makenzie and Betty arrive they have what they need to start. The representative of the school district (Bonnie) now knows the menu from working with us last week. Bonnie however feeds about 140 kids every day as the only kitchen person; as a result she has trouble with all these people in her kitchen. For some reason she starts work early and very often has our items for the day in the oven, etc.
On the other hand our crew is used to doing it all. I have to walk a fine line with Bonnie trying not to discourage her from what she wants to do, but being sure she leaves enough for us in the morning.
Makenzie and Mollie put together the lunch bar and find this group of kids doesn’t take as many sandwiches as the group did last week. After they all leave for their work sites we do not have to build very many sandwiches. Mary bakes a sheet cake for tonight’s dessert and several hundred peanut butter cookies that we will bag and put out for lunches tomorrow. Betty and Pat handle the breakfast bar. I find that Betty in her youth was in the Army stationed in Ireland and worked food preparation for hundreds of soldiers. This all comes back to her and it is easy for her to join right in.
With everyone knowing their job, and only 110 to feed the morning goes very quickly. Well with one exception. The precooked 300 strips of bacon I use with French toast did not come in. As a result I picked up ten packages of bacon at the local food store and cooked them on the griddle.
Following breakfast we replenish the sandwiches for tomorrow and stack them in the refrigerator. I pull the Sloppy Joe trays from the freezer to defrost by dinnertime. Then clean the griddle from making the French toast and call US Foods to get a time for today’s food order. Supposedly around 4:30. Since I will be back around 3:30 we don’t need an intern helping in the office to meet the driver.
The free time becomes a day of rest and recuperation for the girls from the travel and early hours.
By four o’clock the crew is back and working to replenish the salad bar. We open the salad bar at 5:00 Pat makes two tureens of chicken corn soup, and then she and Betty handle replenishment of the salad bar as needed. Makenzie dispenses soup also on the salad bar. At 5:15 Mary and Mollie man the steam tables and build the dinner plates. Chicken over rice pilaf with carrots on the side
Watermelon and cake complete the dinner.
We are cleaned up and out by seven.
On the other hand our crew is used to doing it all. I have to walk a fine line with Bonnie trying not to discourage her from what she wants to do, but being sure she leaves enough for us in the morning.
Makenzie and Mollie put together the lunch bar and find this group of kids doesn’t take as many sandwiches as the group did last week. After they all leave for their work sites we do not have to build very many sandwiches. Mary bakes a sheet cake for tonight’s dessert and several hundred peanut butter cookies that we will bag and put out for lunches tomorrow. Betty and Pat handle the breakfast bar. I find that Betty in her youth was in the Army stationed in Ireland and worked food preparation for hundreds of soldiers. This all comes back to her and it is easy for her to join right in.
With everyone knowing their job, and only 110 to feed the morning goes very quickly. Well with one exception. The precooked 300 strips of bacon I use with French toast did not come in. As a result I picked up ten packages of bacon at the local food store and cooked them on the griddle.
Following breakfast we replenish the sandwiches for tomorrow and stack them in the refrigerator. I pull the Sloppy Joe trays from the freezer to defrost by dinnertime. Then clean the griddle from making the French toast and call US Foods to get a time for today’s food order. Supposedly around 4:30. Since I will be back around 3:30 we don’t need an intern helping in the office to meet the driver.
The free time becomes a day of rest and recuperation for the girls from the travel and early hours.
By four o’clock the crew is back and working to replenish the salad bar. We open the salad bar at 5:00 Pat makes two tureens of chicken corn soup, and then she and Betty handle replenishment of the salad bar as needed. Makenzie dispenses soup also on the salad bar. At 5:15 Mary and Mollie man the steam tables and build the dinner plates. Chicken over rice pilaf with carrots on the side
Watermelon and cake complete the dinner.
We are cleaned up and out by seven.
Day 7: Friday June 26, 2009
(Well, slightly out of order, but please bear with us.)
We are starting the fifth day of sunshine. Well that is what the weather station tells us. At five a.m. there is not enough light to really know.
Today is “whatever we have leftover” day. As a result it is a smorgasbord of items. French toast or eggs off the griddle along with dried beef, toast, English muffins, cinnamon rolls, mixed fruit, even some left over McMuffins from Tuesday.
Being the last day that we will have the six hours of free time before dinner, everyone did their own thing. Rich and Kathy joined Debra and headed to Tamarack, shop that specializes in West Virginia tradesmen handcrafted items. Millie and Nancy read and spent time on the computer. Pat and Carl just rested and joined them for lunch at the Inn. Millie swore she was going to start lunch with dessert, but did have a hot dog before all of us ordered desserts.
Tonight the Town of Gauley is sponsoring an auction of QVC products in the Gym of the building the kids are staying in. As a result everyone, especially the kitchen staff from here want to be finished early. (Even Linda from the old HICO School {now retired} that we worked with four years ago came to the Auction). It was nice to see her and she greeted us as old friends.
Tonight’s dinner is teen food. In place of soup we serve chili, they make their own tacos and of course there is always pizza. This morning Nancy baked two sheet pans of corn bread for dinner and 160 bisquick short cakes to be used with hot peaches for dessert.
One of the groups with us all week headed home as they finished their project today so we were short twenty-five at dinner.
Most importantly we were registered in the gym ready for the auction by seven. A mish mash of items, I looked on the boxes they came out of, they were all marked with a “return” label to QVC. Oh well we still managed to buy $25 worth of items.
I left the gym a little after eight and went across the street to set up for another ice cream snack night starting at 8:30. Rich came back from the Inn to help me. They devour ice cream quickly and Rich and I were back at the Inn by 9:30.
We are starting the fifth day of sunshine. Well that is what the weather station tells us. At five a.m. there is not enough light to really know.
Today is “whatever we have leftover” day. As a result it is a smorgasbord of items. French toast or eggs off the griddle along with dried beef, toast, English muffins, cinnamon rolls, mixed fruit, even some left over McMuffins from Tuesday.
Being the last day that we will have the six hours of free time before dinner, everyone did their own thing. Rich and Kathy joined Debra and headed to Tamarack, shop that specializes in West Virginia tradesmen handcrafted items. Millie and Nancy read and spent time on the computer. Pat and Carl just rested and joined them for lunch at the Inn. Millie swore she was going to start lunch with dessert, but did have a hot dog before all of us ordered desserts.
Tonight the Town of Gauley is sponsoring an auction of QVC products in the Gym of the building the kids are staying in. As a result everyone, especially the kitchen staff from here want to be finished early. (Even Linda from the old HICO School {now retired} that we worked with four years ago came to the Auction). It was nice to see her and she greeted us as old friends.
Tonight’s dinner is teen food. In place of soup we serve chili, they make their own tacos and of course there is always pizza. This morning Nancy baked two sheet pans of corn bread for dinner and 160 bisquick short cakes to be used with hot peaches for dessert.
One of the groups with us all week headed home as they finished their project today so we were short twenty-five at dinner.
Most importantly we were registered in the gym ready for the auction by seven. A mish mash of items, I looked on the boxes they came out of, they were all marked with a “return” label to QVC. Oh well we still managed to buy $25 worth of items.
I left the gym a little after eight and went across the street to set up for another ice cream snack night starting at 8:30. Rich came back from the Inn to help me. They devour ice cream quickly and Rich and I were back at the Inn by 9:30.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Day 9: Sunday June 28, 2009
After church we head the 18 miles to Bob Evans for breakfast. Then Pat gets to do the laundry at a Laundromat nearby. I need to have some copies made for the leaders meeting tonight and head on to Beckley, but I get sidetracked. Seeing a sign to an area we go to often, it is a possible new route. So I take it. When I left the main highway Beckley was eight miles away. Now that I am on the rural route, Beckley is now 12 miles away. Remember the old geometry axiom – The shortest distance between to points is a straight line. West Virginia claims to be the largest state in the union, if they ever flatten it out. By the time I get the copies done, Pat is contacting me because she is done the laundry. I pick her up and we both head back to Whipple for a couple of hours. Our time is limited since we want to be back Glen Ferris by four to meet Mary Keller, Betty Bowes, Mollie Hughes and her granddaughter Makenzie.
They do arrive around four-thirty. They drop their luggage and meet us in the dining room for Sunday dinner. You might call it a working dinner since we work out who handles the Lunch Bar (Mollie & McKenzie) who is our baker (Mary) who handles the salad bar (Pat and Betty. Then we head off to the school to make sandwiches for tomorrow.
Pat, Carl & Makenzie stay and dispense ice cream in our second Dori Gillstrom ice cream party for 2009.
They do arrive around four-thirty. They drop their luggage and meet us in the dining room for Sunday dinner. You might call it a working dinner since we work out who handles the Lunch Bar (Mollie & McKenzie) who is our baker (Mary) who handles the salad bar (Pat and Betty. Then we head off to the school to make sandwiches for tomorrow.
Pat, Carl & Makenzie stay and dispense ice cream in our second Dori Gillstrom ice cream party for 2009.
Day 8: Saturday June 27, 2009 – Alone
With everyone gone we can take it slow and easy. Resting until noon, lunch in the Glen Ferris Inn dining room and then on to the Oak Hill area to the Whipple Company Store. Pat however spent the afternoon resting at the hotel.
As mentioned earlier, last year I toured the Whipple Company store. In the basement of this 100-year-old building is just that. 100 years collection of junk. But in the corner is what was the print shop. Since I earned my living in the graphic arts industry I volunteered to sort through the piles of material jammed into the print shop space. So I spent several hours having the time of my life finding the material for books of the area and other printing projects.
Tradition has Pat and I having dinner with the US Foods representative in this area, Penny Meeks and her husband. So I head back to Gauley Bridge, 18 miles, to get Pat then retrace 24 miles to the restaurant in Beckley. And these are not straight miles. But it is a real experience to negotiate that distance in the dark to get home.
As mentioned earlier, last year I toured the Whipple Company store. In the basement of this 100-year-old building is just that. 100 years collection of junk. But in the corner is what was the print shop. Since I earned my living in the graphic arts industry I volunteered to sort through the piles of material jammed into the print shop space. So I spent several hours having the time of my life finding the material for books of the area and other printing projects.
Tradition has Pat and I having dinner with the US Foods representative in this area, Penny Meeks and her husband. So I head back to Gauley Bridge, 18 miles, to get Pat then retrace 24 miles to the restaurant in Beckley. And these are not straight miles. But it is a real experience to negotiate that distance in the dark to get home.
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