A Season of Thanks & Giving – FB2B, part 39

On Thursday of last week, most of us gathered around tables loaded with treats and feasts. As part of our national tradition, a moment of thanks is usually given, perhaps with heads bowed in prayer, maybe with the youngest member of the assembly lisping sweetly through “The Lord’s Prayer.”

The Thanks part of my holiday this year was spent with an abbreviated version of my family. It has been a good while since we’ve had a more Norman Rockwell/mythical American form of this meal. I enjoyed it but it also brought to mind the fact that I’d read recently about how many folks aren’t even getting all the benefits that they could to feed their own families.

There are still lots of people in this country who depend upon assistance in order to nourish themselves every day. This isn’t to get super-preachy to everyone, but just to highlight that, in this season where we give Thanks for what we have, hands are reaching out to ask us to remember the Giving part by helping donate to those who have even less.

One of the things I enjoy about living in New York is that there are plenty of opportunities to volunteer. Somehow, though, I’d never really put that energy into food-related projects. It’s not even that it is difficult to find ways to help out, as my church lists the days that the local food pantry needs folks and a volunteer newsletter I get each month always has several sessions at local soup kitchens.

It took my joining my new company, and finding out that I knew the project’s team leader, to wake me out of this malaise. Finally, I put my culinary interest to some good use. I signed up to help with meal prep for an organization that serves food to those who cannot feed themselves due to severe and debilitating illness. I’d prefer for privacy reasons to keep the organization’s name mum, needless to say, they are very well-known.

Our few hours one Sunday afternoon a month, make sure that the raw materials of what goes into many meals are ready for the cooks that the organization employs. The volunteers don’t do any of the actual cooking, but here are some of the fruits of our labors on one recent visit:

Chopping Away

A Tub of Celery

Most of what we do is chop, peel, chop, and chop some more. If you ever wondered what industrial-sized, 50-pound bags of carrots looked like when they are cut up, here it is:

A Pile O' Carrots

More Carrots

There is a certain rhythm to the chopping and a nice rapport that develops with our fellow prep cooks. We chop, we chat, we tell stories, we get to listen to 80’s tunes I haven’t heard in years via the radio that always seems to be blaring, no other volume allowed. Having viewed others’ techniques, I’ve decided that, while my knife skills could use some work, I am definitely not at the bottom of the ladder in that department.

On this occasion, after carrots, as you can see, we had celery. Another group was doing onions, lots of onions. My guess was that we were creating the basics for soup, as we were dicing everything. After that came peppers (see below).

This was by far the easiest of the food items we’d ever had to cut. I think that there was a general group consensus that we need to do more peppers and fewer root vegetables (last time we’d had turnips). Not that we actually do get to choose, mind you.

So, in this season of Thanks and Giving, I am going to pledge to try to do more of the latter, especially to organizations that feed others. I am also going to give lots and lots of Thanks that I haven’t been put on onion chopping duty…as yet.