Food Bank- the kitchen

There were 7 of us from W'minster Pres. church who drove to the Tarrant County Area Food Bank this morning.
This time we weren't relegated to the organizing room (which is really boring), but we were ushered into the kitchen. I'm not sure who eventually enjoys these meals, but they were interesting to "prepare". Our assignment was to parcel out 238 individual spaghetti and meat sauce servings in "paper" containers, seal them w/ the hot cellophane equipment and label each one before storing in the freezer. This gave me the opportunity (with food handler's gloves) "play" in cold spaghetti and to flatten the also cold sauce down with gloved hands. An interesting sensation. That done, we labeled another group of already prepared (and frozen) entrees and repacked them in boxes. Labels won't stick very well on frozen cellophane, so we warmed it up slightly with our hands before sticking the labels on. The label gives content information as well as when it was packed. Interesting.

Our final project was to sort and clean beans. Several pounds of dry beans were sorted through for rocks, corn, and wizened beans. This wasn't the most exciting activity of the day, but it is interesting how differently 7 people sort through beans. A few folks sorted out all broken beans, all "half" beans, along with wizened and strange looking beans. The rest of us just culled out the rocks and (of all things) kernals of corn. Different strokes.......
The Food bank also has culinary classes (another story in itself) who this morning were preparing "grains". We were invited to sample their class products and they were excellent.

I'll miss the October opportunity because I'll be in Switzerland.