King Sized

FEEDING TEENS:

"I always look forward to your service. Your food is always so enticing." - Teen Feed staffer on 1/22/22.

Last Saturday was the fourth Saturday of the month so that meant we had our hands full with a Teen Feed to do list.

Our menu was called "Plays on Pizza." Interestingly enough, we didn't serve any pizza whatsoever. Rather, all of the foods were inspired by a pizza dinner. 

Several people (us included) made pizza soup. The bowls were topped with fried pepperoni, grated Parm, shredded mozzarella, and chopped basil. The bowls were beautiful, delicious, and nutritious.

By friend Thy used our big griddle to cook up dozens of Hawaiian pizza-inspired grilled cheese sandwiches on sourdough rounds, with provolone, pineapple, Canadian bacon  and American cheese melted to perfection. 

Thy and her son also tossed a beautiful Caesar salad with Romaine from Dana, plus lots of cheese, creamy Caesar dressing that we made, with olives and croutons. It was super tasty.

                                         

Dessert was fun! Our team baked an array of dessert pizzas: Caramel, Reese's peanut butter, chocolate chip, cinnamon roll and more. 

There was even an Italian soda station.

We boxed up 25 dinners to go for the nearby ROOTS shelter, and then waited ... and waited for the walk in diners. By the end of the hour long service, we had only served a couple of handfuls of in-person guests. It was so unexpectedly quiet, Teen Feed staff actually went out and walked the neighborhood looking for unsheltered teens to invite to dinner. 

Our Teen Feed kitchen lead shared that multiple University District service agencies are reporting a smaller number of people seeking services in the area very recently. Of course, everyone would love to think this is because less people need services, but the actual reason remains a mystery at this point. Stay tuned!

It very well could be that we will be asked to provide less food next month, depending on attendance between now and then. Of course, we had to make sure none of the great food went to waste, so we delivered leftovers to the Tiny Home Village on MLK Boulevard early Sunday morning so that they could have a fabulous lunch! 

WINTER GARDEN: A couple of weeks ago, I assembled a Christmas present I received from Christian. It's a little countertop herb garden. Actually, in our case it's a fridge top garden. 

There are a couple of kinds of basil, some parsley and some dill that is growing like a weed! 

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: A couple of days ago, we undertook a sizeable project - procuring and removing a king sized mattress. Once we got the SUV started after about 13 tries, the kids and I picked up the new mattress at the Alderwood Costco. While there, we had to get a rotisserie chicken, of course. 

We took the new mattress to Mukilteo and wrestled it into G&Gs place. That was the 'easy' part. Then we had to wrestle the big ol' mattress out of tight quarters. However, we had the right tools (a tarp, straps, and a mechanic's creeper/roller) and a good plan. With some teamwork and careful communication, we got it moved without incident. After work, Christian arrived and strapped the behemoth to the top of the car. Then we drove a couple of miles to a mattress recycling facility, an experience that actually gave me nightmares that night, ha ha.

CENTER SHOTS: Last week, Christian and I went to watch the Kraken play at Climate Pledge Arena. Here was the view from our season ticket spots. We're at the end where the Kraken shoot twice per game.

The game was a lot of fun - they actually won, which has happened very infrequently this inaugural season. 

Seattle Center was illuminated in an array of bright colors. I had to stop for a few photos.

MEANWHILE, IN OUTER SPACE: After traveling 1.4 million kilometers from Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope is now in the spot in space where it will start to take images. 

The image below was made by a single 300-second exposure. Unfiltered, it was remotely collected with the “Elena"" (PlaneWave 17″+Paramount ME+SBIG STL-6303E) robotic unit available at the Virtual Telescope Project. The red arrow points to the tiny white dot that is Webb.