This past Friday my kickball team had a fundraiser to try and offset the costs of making the trip out to Las Vegas for the national championship of kickball. I know, most people probably still find it hard to believe that kickball is as big as it is or that there is actually a national championship called the Founder's Cup. Regardless, my team is trying to make it out to Vegas to compete. So back to the fundraiser that was set up for Friday evening. To be fair, I helped out very little in the actual planning or the setup for the event, however, I feel I did my part when I got there to help out. What exactly was the fundraiser that we had? It was a craft beer fest at Anna Liffey's in New Haven. We managed to get almost everything donated except the food. There was a selection of about 35 different beers to be tried, a great band playing, and hamburgers and hot dogs for all. Total price of admission for three hours of all you can eat and drink? $20. The turnout was fantastic with well over a hundred people showing up for the beer and food. The downside? I was one of the two people cooking all the hamburgers and hot dogs. Having not helped plan or setup for the event, I wanted to help out however I could. When I asked how I could help out, I was told that I could cook burgers. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, it would have been had a large grill been provided for me to cook on. Instead, I got to use your average home size grill that just happened to only have three out of four burners working. Couple that with the searing heat that we had on Friday and it was an evening not to be forgotten soon.
So how did the grilling go? Well, in all honesty, it went quite slowly. Once people saw the grill get fired up and the food get brought outside, a line started forming. What started with two people quickly grew to 20, then 30. I looked at the line and cringed. The burgers were completely frozen when I went to grill them so right off the bat we experienced a minor setback. On top of that, we could only fit about 10 burgers over the heat at a time in order to leave enough room for the hot dogs. The first burgers took about 10 minutes to get out and when they went out, only 5 out of ten were ready. You should have seen the look of the people in line as we placed five hot burgers on a tray in front of 30 people. I am just glad that we didn't have a riot on our hands. I could feel the look of anxiousness that people had with the smell of hot burgers and dogs wafting by them and only a few burgers at a time going out to the line. I tried not to look at anyone, just focus on the burgers and apologize for the wait. Its not like I could have seen many people anyway with the smoke billowing constantly into my eyes from the grill. At times it felt like I was constantly crying just because of the smoke. The only saving grace was that people saw we were not professional cooks and had only a regular size grill at our disposal so their angst was diminished somewhat. I focused on the burgers while my friend focused on the hot dogs. We got all the food cooked, somehow, in about 2.5 hours. That's 160 burgers and at least that many dogs. I have never cooked that many burgers in my life before at one sitting and don't really feel a desire to do it again any time soon (especially on a smaller grill).
That being said, however, I would volunteer again to cook, I just hope I don't need to for another year or so. After Friday evening, I discovered that there is absolutely no part of me that ever wants to be a chef. Not that I ever considered a career in the food industry to begin with, but the event Friday sealed the deal for me. No hot kitchens for this guy. It was bad enough standing in front of a hot grill on a hot day for 2.5 hours. Luckily it was evening and it wasn't nearly as hot as it was earlier in the day. The other benefit to being behind the grill was that people kept on bringing us beer. After a while of dealing with the little shots of beer that you get at a beer fest, I decided it would be beneficial to both myself and my fellow cook if we bargained with the beer vendors for whole bottles. We would bring them freshly cooked food if we could get a whole bottle of good beer. It worked wonders and in addition to having the little tastings of beer being provided to us by random people, we also had full bottles from which to drink and help alleviate some of the heat (at least it made it feel less oppressive). So all in all, the evening went well. The lesson learned from the event, at least for me, is to make sure that there is a grill big enough to accommodate the cooking needs for over a hundred people. A small, home size grill with only three out of four burners is not recommended. Oh well, whats done is done and all I know is that you will never find me with a white apron laboring in a hot kitchen over someone else's food unless it is for my family (and maybe for another event like the one we had Friday).
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