...we had the Italian/Chinese combo going tonight.

All right,...check this out:

Ellen -------Jennifer
Nelly -------Maggie Arnold
Maggie -----J. Boggs
Ryan -------Chamberlain
Connor -----Henry
Liz ----------Zack Allen
Danielle ----Twig
Pruden ------Craig
Tom --------Bob
Theresa -----Anna
John L.----- Odett
Jim Morgan ---me

24 people cookin' it up in the kitchen tonight, and 13 of them were youth.
It was great! It was also crowded and hectic, but great. Especially since it's exam week, but most of them said they were done with the hard ones.

I'll be gone the next 2 tuesdays on the Bimini trip (somebody's gotta do it ) so I wanted to cook something fun or new tonight. That sounds goofy, but... Anyway, when I talked to Twig this morning we sorta settled on a breakfast menu : Cheese grits, scrambled eggs and biscuits with sausage gravy, but all day long I kept trying to think of other stuff. I met Twig at Sam's Club at 5:00 and we started putting stuff in the basket when we switched gears and decided to do something we had talked about in the past but never cooked- Meatball Subs. And it just felt good the minute we started getting the stuff, and because I'm goofy, I started getting excited about it.
Then we get to the church and all the kids and adults start showing up and I get even more excited about it, because I like it when there's alot of people helping. there's more interaction and a little more electricity in the air and people are glad to see each other, more people to mess with, etc.

The kicker is, I doubt anybody knew how excited I was because I'm not a "gusher" when it comes to excitement. I was pretty much the same as always, but it was a little different tonight because I knew I'd be out for the next 2 weeks.

Jim Morgan was here tonight! Yay! Jim's been busy - he's Chairman of the Democrats here in New Hanover County. He's also still a fairly newly- married man ( which means he's the Vice-chairman of that party). When he walked up tonight, he said " Where've you been? I've been standing at the 5th St. entrance for 6 weeks." (That's the entrance we don't use.)
Jim is a very funny guy, you just have to know him for 8 or 9 years to realize it. Seriously.

Tonight's menu was eclectic, to say the least. We had Meatball Subs as well as Sweet'n Sour Chicken with Rice, and homemade macaroni and cheese along with dessert, Tea/Water and Popsicles/Ice cream sandwiches.

When I taught at Laney, Tammy Gore was across the hall and taught the Culinary Arts classes. I can't say enough good things about her or her program. Her classes cater most of the functions at Laney and do great jobs. Her classes put out the best spread of anybody during Sr. Projects. It's worth it to go judge at Laney just to see what they've got to eat. I used to tell her about Tuesday nights and she came to me one day and said she was going to cook for the Fall Athletic banquet and was pretty sure she would have extra and would I like to take it and feed the folks downtown. I said sure and got some of my students to meet me and we took it down and fed the guys. It was a great gesture because 1. Food didn't get wasted and she felt good about that 2. I got to take my kids out of the classroom and act out what we talked about in class and 3. because she has offered to do that every Athletic banquet since then and I still call up my old Laney kids and they come help if they can.
Last week was the Spring Athletic banquet and she called and I went. This year she cooked Sweet'n Sour Chicken with Rice. she gave me 2 huge pans of chicken and 2 huge pans of rice, salad, and desserts. I had enough left to use tonight, too.
That's why.....