This week ended up being a fairly easy one. It was only me, Martha, and Tina this week. We made macaroni and cheese with leftover turkey, roasted potatoes, chili corn, and pudding pies. I was put in charge of the roasted potatoes along with another girl and we got to work peeling very small purple and yellow potatoes. We also assembled some breakfast bags. It brought back days of DCCK. We chopped them up and I bathed them in oil. I then seasoned them with oregano and garlic that Martha minced for me. I then helped to make the breakfast bags. We were basically done a half hour to forty five minutes earlier than we usually are. It was a nice change to be on time rather than late. I couldn't stay to finish loading up the car, though, because I had a class presentation that night. I was very proud of my roasted potatoes. They looked like something my mom makes.

This week we cooked for Circles along with getting ready for the Campus Kitchens Anniversary celebration the following day. There were a couple of boys there who cooked mashed potatoes for Circles and the regulars worked on baked goods for the big day. Martha and I were in charge of cupcakes. We took cake mix and baked them in little star containers. Someone else then made homemade icing. Meanwhile Chrissie made cookies, that turned out slightly off color which was no fault of hers. Tina made delicious puppy chow and someone else made another type of cookie. It was a very stressful day. We had a lot to do. The second batch of cookies didn't have non-stick spray on them and they came out glued to the pan. The cupcakes and puppy chow turned out well. The next day was the anniversary and Robert Egger came. The very first thing he did was eat an oddly tasting cookie and along with the fact that it already tasted weird, he got one that had a twist tie in it. Don't ask us how the twist tie got in there. We have no idea, but it is just our luck for Robert to choose that one cookie. Chrissie and I spoke, but I had to make my speech impromptu because it turned out I wrote my speech about things that were already going to be spoken about by other speakers. Both of our speeches went well, and there was a fairly good turn out.

Last week El Centro was closed so I was not able to spend some quality time with Benito. BUt this week we made up the time. He didn't have a lot of homework so we were able to study for some upcoming tests he had. Once we finished, we played games and actualy had a good time. He was in a good mood today and didn't ignore me or make fun of me. He is a funny kid who likes to make lots of sarcastic remarks to me but today he was calm. I really enjoy my time with Benito. I am going to take him to servo one of the last weeks because I want him to meet all my friends. THey really want to meet him too because all they heard the first couple of weeks is how I dreaded going to El Centro because Benito wouldn't let me help him or talk to him.

Sadly next week I am unable to go to El Centro ;( I talked to Benito and he told me he is not going to forgive me but he smirked so I think there is some hope in there for me.

This week at Campus Kitchens we had two very important jobs, we had to prepare the dinner for Circles of Support which we were making Thanksgiving dinner and we also had to prepare baked goods for the 1 year anniversary of Campus Kitchens at Gettysburg. There were 3 guys from another seminar helping out which was good because we had a lot to do. Basically the 5 of us all worked on the food for the anniversary party and everyone else made what was needed for dinner that night. We made cupcakes, brownies, cookies, and Tina made her delicious puppy chow. This was a relatively quick night because there wasn't much we needed to do in terms of dinner because the week before we had already started preparing, and the baked goods were very easy to make.

Today was a very big day because it was the first time Camus Kitchens has ever made a whole pie from scratch. It was very exciting. When I was assigned to help out with the pie i was kind of nervous because I have never even attempted to make a pie nor do I even like pie. We found some recipes online and the best one we found was for a tomato pie, it had to be tomato because we had a lot of extra tomatoes from gleaning that week. Tomato pie sounded disgusting to me but apparently it tastes a lot like apple pie so that makes it seem a lot better. I was in charge of making the tomato part to put inside the crust, the girl I was working with was much more cooking saavy so I got the easy part. Once that was all done we decided to make a lattice on top, it looked so good even though we cheated on that part I think. Everyone else was either working on the taco dinner that we were serving at cirlces of support that night or preparing for the Thanksgiving dinner we are making next week. Gia and Chrissie had to strip all the meat off of the 6 turkeys donated from Servo, it was pretty gross

Today Pete and I discussed basketball. WOOT WOOT (GO SARA). Jan asked me to make copies (big deal...a task OUTSIDE the kitchen. wow.) Anne told us about her day as a sub...she didn't bring them candy to bribe them. i ate the hot dogs even though i hate hot dogs. bad choice. i also burnt my hand on the chili trying to pour it into a tiny cup with a huge ladle. great. fun day.

Last time at Campus Kitchens we made a wide variety of baked goods for the one year anniversary of Campus Kitchens. We also made a Thanksgiving dinner for Circles of Support. I was assigned the job of making cookies with Chrissy. We made some oatmeal cookies and some chocolate chip cookies from scratch. The oatmeal cookies were fabulous until we left them in the oven for too long and burnt the bottoms. They were so burnt that we couldn't even get them off the tray. The chocolate chip cookies tasted a little weird and we are not quite sure what happened to them. As you can see, the cookies didn't go as planned, but the brownies and the cupcakes were wonderful. While us girls were baking there were some boys trying to make the stuffing and mashed potatoes. They didn't exactly know their way around kitchen, but with a little help from us they successfully made the stuffing and mashed potatoes. While the cookies were baking I started on a new project. I started making puppy chow. This consists of chex mix with melted chocolate and peanut butter drizzled over top with some powdered sugar on top. I must say that at the anniversary, Robert Egger tasted my puppy chow and said he liked it. I felt really good about my dessert making abilities. Overrall, I feel like this was my favorite week at Campus Kitchens. It was a lot of work, but baking is one of my favorite things to do!

I am aware that this is extremely late, but I figure better late then never :o) The DC experience was extremely memorable, and I truly believe it changed me in many ways. Living in a hostel was a new experience for me, as a I have never shared a room with anyone let alone 15 people from one of my classes. The beds and the small quarters did not bother me, and I was actually glad to be put in a situation that put me out of my comfort level. Working at DCCK was an experience that I will never forgot. Waking up every morning knowing that we would be making food for 4,000 people is a remarkable concept. Not many of my friends that were back at home would even be up before noon. The staff of DCCK were all so nice and it was so much fun to work with all of them. My favorite day was Sunday when there weren't that many people there and Brian, Harriet, Lindsay and I pealed potatoes. We had so much fun singing and dancing with Freddy and Bo. We were singing respect and then one of the staff members went and got a CD with Respect on it. He said, "This one's for you girls." The environment was inspiring and I could see how much pride the chefs and workers took in their job. On the contrary one of the days that was really stressful, was when I had to organize all of the chicken. Freddy put me in charge of calculating to make sure all the chicken tins were labeled and had the right amount of chicken in each tin. I was getting really overwhelmed because he kept telling me that if there was a mess up I would be the one that he would come looking for. Everything worked out well, and I just can't even imagine what the chefs must go through everyday to be so organized. Besides working in DCCK, I also really enjoyed DC Outfitters. At first I was unsure of what to expect from the experience. I didn't know how the homeless men and women would react to us or how I should react back to them. However, as soon as we stepped foot into the park men began to approach us asking for clothes. Everyone was exceptionally nice and whatever reservations I had walking to the park went away. The first two men that came up to me were laughing and having a good time with us and each other. One of the men was a little larger, so when I was holding up jackets he kept saying how Santa Clause needed a bigger jacket than that. Finally I found I sweater that might have been able to fit him, but his friends came up and took it saying that it wouldn't fit him. Harriet was handing out pants, and she found a very large pair of pants that was the perfect size for this man. He took them and started dancing with them and saying how good he was going look walking down "da streetz" of DC. I was also impressed with how intelligent some of the individuals were that came up to us. Harriet and Tina talked later of a man that expressed his ideas on a Laundromat for the homeless. This would be a place where homeless men, women, and families could go and wash their clothes. I had never heard of this idea and I thought it was a great idea, and would also help the homeless to feel like they had more responsibilities. I really enjoyed the trip to DC and I will always remember meeting all the great people, eating at wholefoods, beating Fee in a walking competition, quoting bon qui qui, and bonding with the best seminar class of 2008!!