Feeding Teens

SMASHING SATURDAY: Saturday, a fair amount of our activity centered on getting ready for Teen Feed. That's our once-a-month gig in the U District where we, along with several other volunteers, get together and provide a big ol' hot meal to teens and young adults living on the street. 

This month's menu inspiration was the IKEA cafeteria, ha ha. It was actually billed as a Swedish Smörgåsbord. On the menu was meatballs (and non meatballs for our vegetarian/vegan guests), mashed potatoes, gravy, mixed veggies, and then cinnamon rolls and cupcakes for dessert. 

We'd signed up for two dozen cinnamon rolls and mega mashed potatoes, among other things. While baking from scratch would have been nice, I'm not gonna lie - we bought those tubes of dough. The price was right, and I knew we'd be making 18 pounds of mashed potatoes from scratch that day, so we had our hands full. 

The rolls actually smelled great when they were done cooking. Annabelle squeezed the ready-made icing atop them.

With the rolls out of the way, we turned our attention to the potatoes. CJ was busy with school work, and Christian was working on a project, so that left Annabelle and me to peel and slice and cook 18 pounds of potatoes. 

I was actually surprised at how quickly we peeled those taters. And then we filled up a couple of pressure cookers to the brim with them. When the time for cooking was up, I declared we'd release the pressure outside, rather than in our kitchen, because I didn't want our place covered in a mist of mashed potato steam. It was a good decision. 

Annabelle and I added a bunch of sour cream, some butter, some garlic powder, white pepper and salt and then mashed the potatoes by hand. About 4:30, we headed north to prep the service kitchen for dinner.

Eventually, other people arrived, bring their donations. As you can see below, we had no shortage of cinnamon rolls. We also served cupcakes.  I brought along some Swedish fish and lingonberry game to put on the rolls or cupcakes if the diners preferred. 

 We had drinks ready, and gallons of gravy.

And meatballs. So. Many. Meatballs. About 50 pounds in total, I kid you not. (Have I mentioned these kids are HUNGRY and craving protein?)

The Smorgasbord was a hit, no surprise. Now, it's time to start thinking about next month's menu.

BEE-WARE: We've had a day or two here and there recently where it was a little unseasonably warm. On one such occasion, Christian took a peek into our to hives. 

Bees sometimes winter over OK in these parts. Often, they don't. At this point, it looks like one of our hives might be lost. The newer of the two hives still has some bees doing their things inside. 

Meanwhile, we just received our renewal notice to register our apiaries with the state. In the bill, there was an information flyer about the dreaded Asian giant hornet invasion. 

They are big, bad news. I've included photos of the flyer's front and back FYI.

They're about 1.5 inches long, with a yellow head. If you see one of these, you should report it, ASAP. And stay away from the bugger. They pack a powerful sting. 

Here's a National Geographic video about the fearsome insect. Just a little fodder for future nightmares. Sorry.