What Surprised Me About Church Suppers
Life is hard; food doesn't have to be #134 [vol6, 5.1]
Yesterday was our last Wednesday night supper at church until the fall. We served the crowd favorite taco bar.
Taco night is the most labor intensive meal of all the meals we serve. And we have a good time all along the way.
Taco Night Offerings
(local) beef or chicken (from whole) with house made enchilada sauce
organic pinto beans and or black beans, soaked overnight then cooked with homemade broth
organic tortilla chips (Costco)
organic basmati rice, made with homemade broth
homemade nacho cheese sauce
shredded cheese
lettuce
house made pickled red onions and jalapenos (both made kinda like this)
house made salsa
sliced radishes, chopped scallions
sour cream with a bit of kefir to allow for easier serving consistency
sometimes we serve house ranch but didn’t last night
all made with mineral rich BajaGold sea salt, generously donated by the company.
Statistics
If you’ve not cooked for large groups these statistics may surprise you…because as I’ve pondered and collected the stats, they’ve certainly surprised me!
Goal: build community and nourish people we love. Each week before the volunteer team eats, we pray for the people coming to be encouraged, feel loved and take joy in knowing good food had been prepared for them.
*Note* I’m not the greatest at details. These statistics are approximate.
Meat - over 400lbs beef, 350lbs chicken, 150lbs pork - large majority was raised on Kentucky Bluegrass!
Potatoes - almost 300 pounds
Eggs - about 25 dozen, many from local sources
Butter - at least 40 pounds
Cheese - almost 100 pounds
Apples - at least 300 pounds, all organic because apples are highly sprayed with toxic chemicals. We also served watermelon, oranges, mandarins, asian pears, bananas, grapes, pineapples, pomegranates and persimmons.
organic all-purpose flour for rolls and biscuits - I didn’t keep up but it was A LOT
high mineral sea salt - about 35 pounds
Man Hours
Each week takes at least 60 hours to pull off feeding a crowd. Quite possibly more.
Our church has moveable walls; we eat where there are classrooms on Sunday. [Cool story: the walls were replaced after 40 years so that Wednesday night suppers could resume post-pandemic.] There’s a team that moves the walls, another team that sets up and takes down the tables and chairs.
There’s the procuring of food. Some weeks I shop at several places. I bulk bought meat in the fall, which has been a bigger help than I imagined when I did it. I try to limit the additional shopping to Aldi and Costco. Also bulk shop from Azure once or twice. Hitting Kroger or a restaurant supply store occasionally.
Tuesday is a big day for prep. We chop veggies, shred cheese, mix dough, sauces and dressings, cook chicken and pull meat from the bones.
Wednesday of course is making food. There’s also the gigantic effort of washing all the dishes. Shoutout to Joe, Jordan and Quentin! We also serve on lunchroom trays — but use disposable plates, cups and utensils.
Administratively there’s a cashier, who greets and takes payment in the event you didn’t pay online - $7 for adults, $5 for 10yo and under, caps at $25 per family.
Yesterday felt surprisingly simple and easy. We actually sat down at 3pm. I can’t remember a meal where we had the margin to relax. It took 9 months to get in a groove.
Meals
Last night I stood at the door and asked people about their favorite church supper. A few I asked their least favorite, because there’s a large contingency that comes no matter the meal.
I was not surprised that Taco Night was the fav.
I was surprised by the responses.
Every meal was mentioned by someone as their favorite except baked ziti. However a kid did say spaghetti was his favorite (even though we didn’t make spaghetti this year.) Last year it was once a month.
I was shocked when one teen girl said her favorite was the baked potato bar with chili!
Almost everyone loves mashed potatoes (tips for great ones here). And bread. Who doesn’t love homemade bread? (wrote about bread for the masses in September)
Not surprisingly some meals had strong feelings. There’s both love and hate for soup/salad as well as meatloaf. It needs to be said there were many, who didn’t choose meatloaf as their favorite, who said this meatloaf was good. It was made with high quality ingredients, to include homemade sourdough as a binder instead of crackers or oats.
The second favorite was Chicken Pot Pie (with homemade biscuits for crust, served with mashed potatoes) and yet one of the lower attended meals. It was a new offering for the menu, so I’m guessing people were apprehensive abouthow it would be prepared. It followed a week off for snow and I wonder if people were out of the habit of signing up? I won’t know for sure the reason for low attendance. Next year I expect an exuberant gathering for that meal. In one family, each member declared it their “favorite meal, ever, anywhere.” High praise I’ll take!
Roast, carrots, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy was very popular.
Cracker Chicken with broccoli casserole had a high number of mentions. It’s a meal that brings with it years of church supper nostalgia. If you’ve not had it — it’s a thin chicken breast dipped in butter then dredged in Ritz cracker crumbs then baked.
Other meals: cheeseburger soup, creamy golden chicken soup, pork BBQ (homemade sauce without HFCS), lasagna, and breakfast casserole. Taco bar was about once a month and a few meals were repeated.
I was surprised that FOR THE FIRST TIME no one mentioned the absence of dessert. This was of course on the heels of Sunday’s church wide picnic and pie competition. ha ha ha!
Life is hard; food doesn’t have to be.
Julie
PS - I’m rescheduling the sourdough class that was inadvertently planned for Memorial Day weekend.
PPS - In case you missed it, I wrote last week about how cooking for 100 is similar to cooking for a family.
PPPS - Shout out to Hilary and Chuck at the School of Lunch Training Academy who have been a huge source of encouragement. If you want to grow in your understanding of how to traditionally prepare food —for yourself or a crowd— I highly recommend their training. Details about my experience at the training here. Their life mission is to train leaders to joyfully disrupt chronic disease with food. Man, they do an excellent job.