Monday, April 29, 2013

Monday, April 29th - another very busy weekend comes to a close

After a beautiful day yesterday, it's a very chilly morning. It's currently 1' at 5:30 but it feels more like -4'. Good thing for me that Lloyd was up earlier and has the fire blazing in the stove by the time I got up. It should improve though, going up to a sunny 9' later.

Another very busy but very successful weekend has come to a close. It started Friday with more burgers after work. I met everyone at 5:30 at Mavor's for their offering. Good thing we had a reservation because the place was packed.  We enjoyed the M-1 burger:


9oz Island Beef Burger stuffed with Cow's Clothbound Cheddar, topped with Horseradish Aioli, Grilled Portobello Mushrooms, Maple Candied Bacon, Cracked Pepper Onion Frites, Tomato and Mixed  Greens on a Toasted Pretzel Bun  

A very tasty way to start off our evening. Our second burger reservation wasn't until 7:45 at the culinary institute so we wandered through the underground pedway to the mall and toured around there.  We found some interesting things to look at in the pet store as well as the ladies clothing store. Bernie was mightly impressed with some of the items in one particular store and I'm sure he made that shop keepers evening! Eventually we wandered over to the Lucy Maud's Dining Room to sample The Canadian Legend:  


  6oz of in-house ground Island Beef sirloin stuffed with Gouda, Smoked Tomato Aioli, Confit Cherry Tomato, Bacon Jam, Bib Lettuce, Candied Bacon, Honey Wheat & Chive Battered Onion Ring on a toasted Ciabatta Bun

Another fabulous burger. These two were the perfect choices to end our Burger Love experience with - both very nice restaurants and both really good burgers. There are still a couple of days left but I think we're done for this year. Our waistlines will be thankful for that! 
Another great Friday evening of good food and great company. Thanks guys!

Saturday was cold and overcast so I didn't really mind being at work. It was a very busy day so it went by quickly. On my way home I met Brenda at the Rec Centre to set up what we could in advance for Sunday's breakfast. We had planned all week and were pretty confident that we had everything organized as well as we could.

Sunday morning was cold and frosty but the sun was shining and it promised to be a beautiful day. Brenda called early to seek some help with the beans. They'd been in the slow cookers over night but didn't seem to be cooked through and didn't have the flavour we were hoping for. Lloyd dug out his big pressure cooker and we headed over. We left the boys there to save the beans while we headed over to the hall. We quickly set about getting the rest of the stuff organized and pretty quickly people started arriving to help out. Pam came in and showed us how to light the stoves and we assigned everyone who arrived a job. We had no idea how it was going to work or how many people to expect but it went beautifully. 

We had four people cooking pancakes on grills all around the  kitchen. I mixed the batches of batter and kept their bowls refilled. One fellow was put in charge of cooking the sausages and he did a great job and really enjoyed using the big convection oven. Someone else was in charge of putting the pancakes in the pans in the oven as they were done. 


We had a young fellow helping running the plates of cooked pancakes from the grills to the oven. It was like a well oiled machine. Lloyd arrived with the beans which were now cooked and very tasty and he set about scrambling eggs. 



There were several times that Brenda and I found ourselves with literally nothing to do as it was all moving along like a finely choreographed ballet! Promptly at 9:55 approximately 150 people arrived all at once. While they got their coats off and found a seat, we brought the food out and set up our buffet line. It took no time at all to get everyone through the line. 

We received a lot of compliments from people about the quality of the food so I think it was a success. We had some left over but not huge amounts. We could have fed a few more people but we did a pretty good job of estimating amounts needed. Everything that was left was taken home so nothing went to waste. A lot of people pitched in to help clean up and we were done before noon.  We went to the Van Gaals for a cup of tea and a collective pat on the back for a job well done. For the first effort it was a great success.

After leaving there, Lloyd and I headed into town for a quick trip to the Rockport store that was having a sale. I'd picked up a pair of shoes earlier in the week so Lloyd wanted to see if he could find some. He found a pair of boots and a pair of shoes so he did well. By the time we got home it was sunny and quite mild so we headed outside to putter in the yard. He had some work to do on his tractor and I did some more cleaning up in the yard and the flower beds. Later in the afternoon Brenda and Bernie came over to help Lloyd get my craft table upstairs in the garage. It actually went easier than I anticipated it would. I wanted to get a picture of the table being slid up the ladder but I was too late getting the camera. Brenda and I sat in the sun and enjoyed the show with a glass of wine.  

It was getting quite close to supper time so we decided to head over to a local restaurant for something to eat. We enjoyed a lovely meal together and an all round great evening - thanks Brenda. 

It had been a very busy weekend so after a nice hot bath and a little TV it was time to call it a night. 



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