Spring Break 2007 Slide Show!

Spring Break Delivery # 3

The last step in a very successful mission to keep the Campus Kitchen open during spring break was the final delivery of meals.

Sophomores Marty Ellsworth, James Scheib, and Roger Lalle returning from a delivery route.

Volunteers, such as Marty, James, and Robert, were instrumental in keeping the Campus Kitchen going during spring break. During the 10-day break, 14 volunteers logged just over 60 hours total while preparing 149 meals and delivering them to people in the area!

Spring Break Meals # 3

The Cooking Club came in again and volunteered for the last cooking shift over spring break. The collaboration resulted in yet another fabulous meal!

The contents were sliced ham for the protein, macaroni and cheese for the starch, spinach as the veggie, and pound cake for the dessert. This combination of food has a good variation of color and texture, so I'm positive the clients appreciated the work that went into preparing them.

One new thing we tried during this shift was wrapping the dessert, the pound cake in this case, in small bags. Some times the various food items will shift in the meal container and spill on the dessert. We tried our best to keep that from happening by wrapping the dessert separately.

Gonzaga Alums Help Deliver Meals

While the school was on spring break, three Gonzaga alums helped out delivering meals with the Campus Kitchen.

Alumni in front of St. Aloysius

(L-R) Liam Hardy '02, Matt Cullinane '02, and Brendan O'Boyle '02 all pitched in with the delivery shift.

Delivering the Meals

Volunteers walking up North Capitol Street.

Even with all the hard-work that went into the cooking shift, the real job was only half-way done. Volunteers helped deliver the meals they made the following day.

One new idea we've been doing at the Campus Kitchen is distributing reflection hand-outs at the end of each shift. These are helpful in figuring out what volunteers got out of the shift. Some reactions from this shift:

"It was nice to meet some of Gonzaga's neighbors." - Anonymous

"I am starting to see a DC community instead of separate residents." - Tom Mason '07

"The general image is that [the residents] are mean, but reality set in when people chatted and said hellos." - Melissa DeLoach

Spring Break, Cooking Club, and the Campus Kitchen

This week Gonzaga College High School is on spring break, but that doesn't mean the Campus Kitchen is slowing down! With help from the Cooking Club, a group that has cooking sessions to teach students culinary skills, we continued our usual output of meals.

We've tried our best in the past to make cooking shifts fun and educational, but they haven't always been both. Luckily, the moderators of the Cooking Club brought expertise and excitement to the shifts! For our Monday cooking shift, we prepared over 100 meals for delivery on Tuesday and Friday. The Cooking Club graciously donated almost all of the food for the spring break.

The contents of the first meal are:

Protein: Orange pork chops
Vegetable: Green beans
Starch: Cheesy mashed potatoes
Dessert: Brownies

(We also provided after-dinner mints for our clients.)

We cut the bones out of the pork chops with kitchen shears and then proceeded to glaze them with orange marmalade and honey dijon mustard. Volunteers sprinkled chives on the pork in the frying pan. We received a shipment of baked potatoes from one of our donors, so we peeled them, and added sour cream, milk, and cheese to make cheesy mashed potatoes. We had a difficult time mashing them up but it all worked out in the end!

Senior Tom Mason helps cook the pork chops!

We usually would have stopped with one set of meals, but we were having so much fun that we plowed ahead with a super-sized cooking shift and made double meals!

The second set of meals we made included:

Protein: Chicken cacciatore
Starch: Egg noodles
Vegetable: Salad
Dessert: Cookies or eclaires
Dressing: Ranch or Italian

(After-dinner mints were included, too.)

The recipe used for the chicken cacciatore called for green peas, so volunteers added them to the chicken cacciatore and spooned everything over egg noodles for the entree. For the salad, we used two bags of shredded lettuce donated from our donor, Brock. We also had celery donated from our other donor, Venable, but not much else. We added shredded carrots and cherry tomatoes the day of delivery to complete them. Previously when we've made salads (and we've made them many many many many times), we didn't put dressing on because it would make the lettuce soggy. The Cooking Club moderators brought in tiny plastic cups and tops to put salad dressing in. When we delivered the meals, we gave clients a choice of ranch or Italian dressing. Brilliant! For dessert, to top everything off, we made a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

Senior Tom Mason and sophomore Martin Ellsworth making cookies.

After all was said and done, the Cooking Club prepared over 100 meals of exceptional quality for delivery. The skills that volunteers learned, including cutting and frying pork, are ones that we have not taught before. Volunteers seemed happy to have so much actual cooking to do. This Spring Break cooking shift was very successful and hopefully the Cooking Club and Campus Kitchen can collaborate again in the future.