Dinner reservation for 75, please…

Last weekend Jon and I had the unique experience of cooking dinner at the Hogar for everyone over 13 years of age. A missionary named Claudio was coming from Chile to visit, and they wanted to have a special dinner for him. When a special guest is coming, the most logical thing to do is to put two foreigners in charge of a sizable operation with which they have no experience. Well, the actual logic used by the leaders of the Hogar was this: Claudio is a fan of spicy foods. Americans like spicy foods too. We should ask Jon to cook a lot of spicy food.

Jon is not one to say no to a challenge, but he also knows when he needs help. To procure this assistance he did two very important things. First, he wrote to his mother for a recipe. As expected, the lovely Mrs. Birney delivered detailed instructions for red beans and rice. But he knew that the recipe alone would not be enough. He needed help in the trenches too--someone with experience, someone who would be calm under pressure, someone who could turn a gigantic pile of ingredients into a delicious meal for 75 people. Why he instead called me, I will never understand.

What followed was a busy, hot, joyful 7-hour process of chopping, “measuring,” boiling, stirring, dancing, singing, chatting (in English and Spanish), baby-bouncing, joking, and general mayhem. We had more help than we could handle. And shockingly enough, it actually tasted really good when it was all done. Along with our entrée we made the biggest pan of brownies I have ever seen in my life. (Really, the brownies turned out more like cake because there is no way to accurately measure ingredients here. Also, the ovens do not have temperature gauges—there is only “hot” and “really hot.”)

During a good dinner at the Hogar it is not uncommon for someone to shout “Thanks to the cooks!” This is followed by some amount of clapping and cheering. On this particular night there was resounding applause the likes of which I had not heard before. This has more to do, I think, with their appreciation than the food itself, but I still loved to hear it.