What's up in the kitchen?

One of my duties at the Abbey is to work in the kitchen. Now I do have some experience in large service kitchens. At church I often helped coordinate meals for large groups. At school I have paid close attention to when Chef gave us instructions about cooking. And as a teenager I worked for a world famous restaurant, “we do it all for you.” Not to mention, my friend has given me the privilege of being her sous chef for a number of years. But this is a little different. Along with three of my volunteer companions and some days the Cook, we prepare two meals a day for a total of 60 plus staff and guests. That’s two meals, 60 plus people, and no chance for a backup plan.
Kitchen duty has three shifts; 7 a.m. – 2:30 p.m., 9:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. The early morning folks typically have two primary responsibilities, preparing porridge and preparing for the morning “vegetable chop,” and doing the baking. Some days baking means bread, or scones, or rock cakes or biscuits (cookies). These could be shortbread, oatcakes or any variety of cookies (chocolate, almond, and lemon). The baker tends to be the senior volunteer, or at least the one who wants to bake. The cook allows us a lot of latitude in what we bake with. For example, for Canada Day, July 1, the volunteer baked maple and walnut scones. She also made an amazing treacle bread. The other vollie will start the porridge, and set up all the vegetables to be chopped for the day. The guests will join us in the kitchen after worship to chop vegetables. Everyone goes to great lengths to avoid chopping the onions.
The 9:30 people typically begin to work with the guests and chop vegetables. After the guests leave there will typically be four kitchen workers, and we will prepare lunch, usually soup and bread, and make up dinner. Dinner typically is a type of casserole or stew, which will be prepared but not cooked until 5:00 p.m. All the soups, and most of the dinners are vegetarian. Sunday lunch, and Tuesday dinner are typically the exceptions. Sunday lunch is a massive spread, and Tuesday dinner is a bigger meal because the guests are on pilgrimage during the day and quite hungry when they return. After lunch the morning people will clean up, and complete a cleaning summary before leaving.
One or two people will come in at 5:00 p.m. The first thing that must be done is to warm the dinner pans. Then the evening people may be asked to prepare stuff for the morning. For example, if you have extra time you can prepare the bread dough for the morning shift person. You will clean up after dinner, and hopefully be finished by 7:30 p.m.
The cook had decided to celebrate U.S. Independence Day by preparing a great feast. We had gammon (ham), scalloped potatoes, string beans, sweet potatoes and apple pie with ice cream. I worked on the apple pie. Peel 30 large apples, core and slice into wedges. It had a cream cheese filling; 250 kg of sugar, 250 kg of cream cheese, 9 eggs and 2 tbsp of vanilla. Another vollie did the crust and finished the pies. And the coolest part of all, while working on the pies this vollie, who pursues Celtic Spirituality, and I had this cool in-depth theological conversation about God’s presence throughout creation.
This was a thin place.