Kitchen Adventures

LET JIMI TAKE OVER: February 25th was the fourth Saturday of the month, which meant that we were busy with our monthly Teen Feed meal service.

February is Black History Month, and it also marks the month rock icon Jimi Hendrix, a Seattle area native, bought his first guitar. To celebrate, we turned to Jimi's songs for some culinary inspiration for our February Teen Feed!  Annabelle drew up an artsy, awesome menu sign for the service, and CJ was the DJ, spinning Hendrix tunes for three hours straight.

"Oh my gosh, they're gonna love this!" said a Teen Feed staffer surveying the buffet line right before service

"Hey Joe" showed up in many forms. The main entrée was sloppy joes and we dished up savory jojos on the side.

Team members combined to make plentiful amounts of pretty "Purple Haze" coleslaw. (Side note: Interestingly, the purple slaw was more popular than green slaw we've served in the past.) 

"Hey Joe" popped up again at the dessert end of the buffet, with yummy Trader Joe's Joe-Joe's cookies.

Inspired by Jimi's "(Let Me Stand Next to Your) Fire," the service was spiced up with bunch of Atomic Fireballs brought by Beth. 

We had some Jimi-inspired fun with the evening's beverages.  A bright, shining star of the service was the "Purple Haze" mocktail. Both beautiful and refreshing, it was the perfect blend of lemonade, butterfly pea flower tea, and lavender syrup. "It's really herbal. The lavender really finishes it," said one fan.

And, of course, "Hey Joe" obviously meant we had to offer some coffee-flavored drinks

All in all it was a memorable meal service. 

"I love the Jimi Hendrix-inspired menu!" declared one appreciative dinner guest.

LEFTOVERS: I over bought when it came to cabbage for our Teen Feed coleslaw. Rather than letting it go to waste, I decided it had been way too long since we made some sauerkraut. 

To refresh my memory, I looked back at an old blog post where we'd made sauerkraut in the past. These two videos were very helpful.

Then, it was time to chop up the cabbage, smash it with our hands and salt it, and put it in jars to ferment.