Hello on Friday

Dear Friends,

Linda had a semi pleasant day without me. She communicated with one of her out of town girlfriends, and that was it for human contact. She did okay making food for herself, but I wasn't there to interact with her.

My day on the other hand was a long one, and I interacted with so many people that it was nice to come home to a quiet house.

Can you conceive how much work it took to prepare one large tray of Eggplant Parmesan from scratch, and split chicken breasts, pound them into thin pieces, dredge them in an egg, flour, and bread crumbs, and then cook over 400 pieces of chicken in a friolator for about 5 to 6 minutes until they are golden brown.

The Eggplant Parmesan was for 10 vegetarians. When people saw how good that the Eggplant Parmesan looked when we were serving them, a lot people turned into vegetarians. We ran out of Eggplant Parmesan.

We also had to prepare three different kinds of sauce. The Vegetarians had to have sauce that was made with no meat products.

We also had to have a pan of sauce with no garlic. One lady in the crowd of 400 + was allergic to garlic. If this lady came into the kitchen as we were preparing the largest pot of our regular sauce, she would have gone into cardiac arrest. The whole kitchen and everyone who touched the garlic smelled like they picked garlic for a living. We put garlic salt in the salad so the salad makers had to change there gloves, and make one batch of salad with no garlic. Once we located this woman I hand delivered her non garlic salad, her non garlic pasta, and her non garlic Chicken Parmesan Dinner. We also served string beans with the Chicken Parmesan Dinner. Of course, the string beans had to be garlic free.
Note- When we dredged the chicken, we had to use plain bread crumbs, and not the Italian seasoned one because there is a garlic product in the mixture.

As we were doing this for this one lady, I was told that we Serve Safe certified individuals have to also get a Serve Safe Certificate which explains how to deal with people whom we serve who have allergies. Our head kitchen guy did his on line, but I am pretty sure that I can go to our local health department and get certified too.

We had one complaint about the Chicken Parmesan dinner not being hot enough. I wanted to scream because if this person knew how difficult it was to plate, season, and put five main dishes on each tray, and have servers working their butts off to get food to each table. The ITAM didn't have enough of those plate covers for over 400 people. We used the few plate covers which we found in the kitchen for bread baskets because we ran out of the normal wicker baskets.

Oh, I forgot to mention that we also had a children's menu of meat balls and pasta.

One lady asked what kind of cheese was on the Chicken Parmesan. Well, it wasn't processed American cheese, it was Provolone. One of the UNICO workers sliced the block of the cheese on the slicing machine in the kitchen.

I think when people come to a fundraiser they have to realize that total perfection is difficult to attain. At a restaurant, it is a little less difficult to serve a table of 8 people as opposed to serving a crowd of 400 + people.

Of course, all of us UNICO workers had a lot fun in the kitchen. The home made wine was flowing freely. Yes, you can have good time even though you are working so hard trying to take care of every detail.

Well, my UNICO Brothers and Sisters do it all over again on Tuesday. This event should be a simple pasta dinner of Meat Balls, Pasta, and a Salad. The Pittsfield High School Italian Exchange Club parents will be making the desserts. We are back at the ITAM once again. I hope that anyone who has any kind of severe allergies chooses to make their own meal at home, and just makes a donation.
We UNICAN'S don't want to take the "Fun" part out of a Fundraiser. Preparing three pots of different red sauces is a bit much. Garlic is a stable in Italian cooking.

Even though I am awake and up, my body is still aching from being on my feet all day.

I will bond with Linda all day even though we are missing an ITAM fundraiser this evening.

I will take her to the 1:30 PM appointment which she has at the wound clinic. She will get her bandage changed then. I hope that the wound clinic people tell her that the healing is going well, and to continue what she has been doing.

Observation -- As we were all working together in the kitchen and as the servers some UNICAN'S, and some from the Brien Center worked their butts off, we put aside all the strife and suffering which is going on in the world. Every one of the guests and workers, who were from all ethnic backgrounds, were all getting along. There are always a couple people who "get under your skin", but when you look at the big picture, there was a lot of harmony which took place at the Fundraiser. Why hasn't the rest of the world learned this concept?

While at the Fundraiser, I met my cousin's son (my cousin lives in
Florida) who works for the Brien Center. We chatted for a little while, but we couldn't talk too much because he was part of the crew decorating the hall and taking care of details on the floor. I hadn't seen Derek in a long while, but he has turned into a handsome young man. He has Polish and Italian blood flowing through his veins. I see him as a member of UNICO one of these days.

Well, I have to finish my morning routine.
The Queen should be waking up soon.
Have a great Friday.
You know what the Queen and I will be doing today.

Talk to you soon. The Curley Lad