....The Miami Giants!

ELAINE / ELLEN / ALYSSA / CECELIA / MAGGIE / MADDY / WAYNE / STEVE / BLAKE / LAURA / TERESA / ANNA / RANDY / J.BOGGS / CHRISTIAN / MIKE / MERRITT / CREEEEECH! / ALEXIS / MARK / TYLER / MEREDITH / and me had a blast in the kitchen and out on the street tonight being God's hands and feet.
Twig and Brien were out of town. Twig, Anna and Laura will all be gone next week on the mission trip to Guatemala.

You know me. Without anyone to answer to about what we're cooking, I hold out and make a 4:30 (and sometimes later) decision. Today I actually made it about 2:30 when Mr. Taylor told me somebody had given us 25 lbs. of deer sausage. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I've been wanting to do it for a long time and just hadn't pulled the trigger.
wait for it......wait for it.... here it comes...almost there..... CHEESE GRITS !
I already had two 5lb. bags of grits in the pantry, so all i needed now was some eggs and cheese. a quick little run to Sam's and we were good to go.
The sausage was not ground bulk but in long casings. It was pretty funny watching Maddy and Maggie cutting it up. I'm pretty sure they weren't even aware of deer sausage as a concept, never mind having seen or eaten it before.

Things in the kitchen could not have gone much better tonight. One of the reasons why is J. Boggs. He has become my right hand guy for things that need to be done outside of the kitchen.
We have storage space under the Harrelson Center next door and that's where we keep our tables, coolers, paper goods, etc. J. Boggs make that run for me and anything else that needs to be gotten out of there. That freed me up tonight to stay in the kitchen and keep things moving in there, especially with Twig not there.
Another reason is because all the kids were great. Every one of them did a great job at the tasks we had tonight. Mark and Christian manned the griddle to get the sausage cooked. Maggie was in charge of getting the grit water to a boil and stirring them in. Elaine, Alyssa, Merritt and Ellen cracked 180 eggs to go into the grits. Cecelia washed cutting boards and worked the eggs for me. Everybody was outstanding tonight.

And poor Teresa and Anna. Cooking grits is messy. Even when you try not be (and we don't), it just is. Bless their hearts, they soaked pots, wiped tables, and just generally cleaned up behind us the whole time. Love 'em to death. If roles were switched I'm pretty sure they could do what I do, but I'm not sure I could do their job as well as they do.

We used 25 lbs. of deer sausage, 10 lbs. of grits, 180 eggs, and a huge can of cheese sauce to make 14 gallons of cheese grits. That's right -14 gallons! And we served out almost every bit of it. We had just a little left and I sent that home with somebody. I love not having leftovers!

Tonight was really fun. I wasn't here last week. I was at an FCA banquet. It was great to be back in the kitchen with everybody tonight.

You've heard people say you can't out-give God. It's true. It has been amazing and humbling the way he has met our needs and beyond the past few weeks since our freezer died and we lost most of our meat. We've gotten hamburgers, hot dogs, deer burger, barbeque, deer sausage, and other meats to fill the need.
Somebody gave me 6 cans of refried beans yesterday. I don't know if we can wait 'til Cinco de Mayo to use those.
I also know you can't over-praise God , either. He is so good and so faithful, the praise we give and reflect doesn't do Him justice.
I mentioned Randy a couple of weeks ago, about how God was providing for him. In the two weeks since I'd seen him, God had done even greater things in his life. He has done so well at his job at the cabinet shop, they are going out of their way to compensate him beyond the paycheck he receives. He moves into an apartment on Wednesday and gets a company truck to drive outside of work, also. God is doing great things in his life and he readily admits it's God at work and not him.

We see some really off the wall stuff. We get people wearing all kinds of stuff, we get people that look as unkempt as you can imagine, we get it all. We also get our share of folks who are "under an influence".
Lubed.
Think it's Beer-Thirty.
And I can handle that. I'm not naive or simple enough to think that's not gonna come around out there.
But ....there's one thing that absolutely irks me like nothing else. And a couple of the folks that help have picked up on it and I think they enjoy watching me when it happens.
It just grates all over me when people clearly under the influence start acting "spiritual". Talking about how good God is, and God bless this and psalms this and I go to this church and on and on and on, like nobody can tell they've been drinking. That just rubs me like sandpaper. To me it's just profane and blasphemous and I literally have to get far away or...else. But it's a lot of fun for the ones who see it coming because I don't do well when they're around. I start cutting my eyes at everything, giving one word answers to everything, wanting nothing more than for them to just get their food and GO. But their the ones who want to stop and "preach" and "give glory", even while everyone can see they're in the bag.
Those times are not my finest reflection of Christ. Lord, help me in those times.

And then there's the goofy and the funny.
There was a guy at the first stop tonight with a big ol' drum-like bongo sorta thing. I think they're called jombays or something. And he looked like he'd be carrying one - dreadlocks, tie-dye shirt, a pair of Jerusalem cruisers. Anyway, I'm welcoming everybody and getting ready to say grace, when he goes to beating on it . The old -timers started jumping on him and telling him to quit. Then while we're serving, he starts beating on it again. I slid over and just kind of quietly said how bout holding off on that til you get your bowl and have eaten. He said ok and then asked how'd you like it though? Did it sound good?
I said yeah man, not bad. What I really wanted to say was you're stoned and beating on one bongo with one hand. How do YOU THINK it sounds? But I didn't. Yay for me.

Then at the next stop, Steve sees a guy with a jacket sporting a team logo on it. Steve says something to the effect of is that your team? The guy goes NO, here's my team and throws the jacket open to reveal a Washington Redskins jersey. Steve messes with him a little bit about the 'skins and the guy says Guess who my real team is? Steve says who? The guy puffs out his chest and says......