Improvising

It’s not entirely true that doing simple math is the only thing you need to cook for a crowd. My biggest challenge is getting the ordering right. Our different suppliers for summer camp deliver on different days and carry different items, so it’s no small task. One year I was feeling pretty smug because everything was running so smoothly. I was really on top of things. But pride comes before a fall. Saturday night when I went to the freezer to get the chicken nuggets out for a quick and easy meal the next day, they were nowhere to be found. I had forgotten to order them! There would be no other delivery until Monday. To make matters worse, the village mayor and priest were coming for Sunday lunch! I found enough chicken breasts for about half the camp and a few kilos of smoked salmon. I decided to serve rice with a choice of two different sauces. I made a very rich and creamy sauce with the salmon to stretch that, then chopped up the chicken and made a mushroom sauce with loads of mushrooms. Not only would that make the chicken go farther, but it would also steer those who didn’t like mushrooms to the salmon sauce, which I thought would be less popular. I pulled it off and no one was the wiser except my kitchen crew and some of the staff.

firing on all cylinders

my kitchen crew