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The menu was CHILI GRILLED CHEESE DESSERT SWEET TEA/WATER
Here's why we chose chili: There was a business meeting at church Sunday night and people brought chili. There was a large pot left over, so we got it and just added more to it. It was an easy call. We also passed out goodie bags with 4 different Little Debbie Cakes in them.
LEARNING TIME
Little Debbie was the pioneer in individually wrapped baked goods. Their first product was the Oatmeal Creme Pie. They utilize a special recipe that requires less water in their product, giving them a longer shelf life. Longer shelf life requires less visits to locations by route drivers, which has made stocking a route for Little Debbie a pretty good job over the years. It's a private, family-owned company (McKee Foods) located in Collegedale, Tenn. They have 1/3 of the snack cake market, making them them #1 in the country. They have 75 different products, with Oatmeal Creme Pies, Swiss Rolls, and Nutty Bars the top 3 sellers. Just thought you might want to know.
Think we're gonna do meatloaf next week. We've got a good amount of deer burger and it works great for meatloaf.
We had over 30 people helping this week. That's a lot of help. There were a couple of first-timers this week. TIM and ASHLEY are members of the church, had heard about us at different times and joined us this week. Then, at the start of the 2nd stop I looked up and saw a guy I didn't know behind the table, setting stuff up and helping out. I said Hey I'm Gary and he introduced himself as KYLE ZUPON, which meant he was ALYSSA's dad. She didn't tell me he was coming. He jumped right in and was a big help on the service line.
I thought about it and finally decided that for the SUPER BOWL PARTY we would scale back and just have cupcakes or brownies.
Yeah, right........We're gonna get big on some pig!
SUPER BOWL PIG PICKIN' PARTY is a full-on GO!The pig part of the program has been taken care of. Now I gotta line up the fixin's. I'm thinking traditional- beans, cole slaw, some little white potatoes and banana pudding. And Sweet Tea.
Anybody reading this is welcome to come and join us. It's a nice relaxed time just eating and watching the game. If you want to help, come on.
If you can't come but want to make something for us, just get in touch with me. We'd be glad to have it.
THANKS. g
FINGER UPDATE: TaB? When was the last time you saw someone drinking a TaB? I always think of it as a 60's and 70's diet soda, but they still pump it out. 3 million cases a year. Someone gave us nine 12-packs. When we told them we had that to drink, we got a lot of funny looks. Several of them remembered it from way back. It was a fairly amusing sight to see our crowd sitting around eating Cheese Grits and drinking TaB.
Coca-Cola got the name"TaB" from a computer generated list of 250,000 four-letter, one syllable words. After narrowing it down to 20 words, they picked "Tabb" and dropped the last letter. The ads promoted it as a drink that helped you "keep TaBs" on your figure. It's popularity faded when, in 1982, Diet Coke became the flagship diet drink for Coca-Cola. (If you're ever on Jeopardy and the Final Jeopardy category is "Diet Sodas Nobody Drinks Any More", now you can bet with more confidence. You're welcome.)
The cheese grits recipe was same as last time- 10 lbs. of grits, big can of cheese, 15 dozen eggs, 20 lb. of deer sausage. That winds up being about 12 gallons of final product. It turned out to be a good night for it too, because it was chillier than I thought it was going to be.
Hayden Sykes collected bookbags and donations for an Eagle Scout project. He had 50 backpacks, all of them with a blanket, a set of thermals, a tobbogan, socks, toiletries, and a Bible inside. He brought some help from his troop to unload and pass them out at the first stop.
It was such a great thing to do. Nobody coming last night had any idea they would receive such a great gift and they were blown away. Hayden and his guys did a great job, not just passing out bags, but pitching in and helping us serve. Between the regulars, the Scouts, and the folks that came to eat, we had around 70 - 80 people out front for a while. That's a good kind of crowded.
The neat thing about it was God's timing. Because of the weather and whatever else, we had been seeing smaller crowds (20-25) at the first stop. Hayden called me Monday and asked if he could do it the next day. I said sure. He comes with 50 bags..... and 48 people show up last night with no idea of getting anything other than something to eat.
When football season starts in September, I mention to the guys at Mercy House every once in a while that we'll be doing a SUPER BOWL PARTY. The past few weeks they've been reminding me that we're doing one.
I always look forward to it. The first year we had 20 guys, the second we had 30 and last year 40. We have good people who come down and help us with it. Trying to decide what to do for food that night, I've been running through different formats. We could do burgers on the grill. I could put out a call and get people to make pots of chili and drop off at the church, then warm them up for the game. We could go heavy hors d'oeurves and appetizers.
Or maybe we could do........
....... a pig pickin'?
We got a pig cooker. A hog runs somewhere around $1.10 -$1.25 a pound. $100 dollars ought to buy us enough pig for at least 50 people. Get cole slaw. Beans. Some sweet tea to wash it down, maybe a TaB or two. Throw a chicken on there for guys that don't eat pork. BAM! SUPER BOWL PIG PICKIN' PARTY !
It's a thought. I imagine we could do the other things a little cheaper, and that's cool. They like burgers and they like chili. Shoot, I love burgers and chili.
Still, ....a pig pickin'? That'd be sweet. You gotta figure the guys at the Mercy House......
Finger update: Looks worse, getting better, I guess. The black stuff is just dried blood and ooze that is working its way out. That doesn't worry me as much as the "pus-knot" (?) I got growing on the left there. Still incredibly painful if I hit the left side or tip on something. Got 4 days of antibiotics left to take. I soak it in Epsom salts religiously. 
QUESTION: Which finger is the most vital and essential for everything you do during the day?
ANSWER: Which ever one currently hurts.
Take a look at that bad boy.
The kids at school get the "lady with the baby carriage in front of the 18 wheeler story", but I just snagged the nail on something and it tore down on the side pretty deep. When I was cutting it and trying to clean it up, I must have got some meat or something.
That was Monday. Tuesday it hurt like crud and I was hitting it every time I turned around. By Wednesday it was the Pain Center of my Universe. I went by and saw the nurse at school before 1st block and she said soak it in Epsom Salt. She put a band-aid on it (not tight). 45 minutes later it was throbbing and the band-aid was killing me. Took it off and sure enough, it had swollen and split the skin on the left side.
I soaked it 3 or 4 times before I went to bed Wednesday. This morning it was a little less sore except for directly on the tip and the left side. Swelling had gone down a little, but little pus pocket had showed up.
The picture you see was taken about 10 minutes ago. I included another finger for comparison and because I didn't want to throw the ol' middle finger up there by itself.
There is one cool thing about it. The swelling that starts on the left and wraps underneath the nail gives it a "Bib Fortuna" look. If you're a STAR WARS person, go back a take a look. You'll see what I mean. (Bib Fortuna was rhe alien in ROTJ who met people at Jabba's lair and brought them to Jabba. Had 2 big tentacles out of the top of hits head.)
Gotta, tell you though, finger injuries are pretty low on the "sympathy generator" list.
........people with road rage are giving each other the mitten.
........flashers are just describing themselves to people that walk by.
Thank you. I'll be here all night.
g
SUPER BOWL PARTY is coming up. One of my favorite events of the year. This will be our fourth one. We had 20 the first year, 30 the second, and 40 last year. Maybe 50 this year. We'll see.
I'm on the lookout for some duck again this year. Last year's Turducken was such a spectacular failure I've got to try again. Although, for something that looked that bad, the parts that were salvagable tasted pretty good.
What's my New Year Resolution?
The same thing it is every year, Pinky...............
.JPG)
