I volunteer a lot at my community garden and I'm in charge of composting. They call me the "Compost King," but it's not always a lofty position as I spend a lot of time cleaning up after people. Sometimes the King gets cranky.
There is a fraternity house down the street, Delta Chi, and every September they have a grape-stomping toga party for rush week, leaving them with gallons and gallons of crushed grapes to dispose of. In past years we've let them pour it onto the compost piles, but this year they came by when the garden was locked up and left bins of grapes on the sidewalk for us to deal with. I was peeved, and emailed their president to tell him so. I got the most amazing response! They offered to come work in the garden, saying "We are a large group of men that are always looking for community projects, and we are ready and willing to work with you in the near future."
That was music to my ears and I wasted no time. We'd been planning to build a grape arbor so I pinned them down to help out last Saturday and promised them a nice barbecue in return. I was expecting maybe half a dozen guys but then on Friday I found out there would be 16! We never turn away workers, but that meant scrambling around for food.
The guys were amazing. While my friend Dale used a few of them to start the arbor, we had to think quickly to keep the rest occupied. We had them build a broken concrete retaining wall, then dig post holes for eventual fences, then take machetes to some overgrown banana trees, then dig a huge hole for a fish pond. They did all this by noon, and after lunch, half of them stayed until the arbor was finished.
The menu was my favorite simple recipes; barbecued chicken and tri-tip with Ina Garten's amazing barbecue sauce, potato salad, Caesar salad, homemade French bread, and lemon bars. I did plan to make lemonade but ran out of time.
I cooked 5 chickens and 4 tri-tips. The guys ate, and ate, and ate. One of them said, "Well, this beats a frozen corn dog!" I guess they don't do a lot of serious cooking in the frat house.
It was a win win win situation, and I told them that if this is the response I get, I plan to send cranky emails more often.
https://recipeswap.org/fun/wp-content/uploads/Finer_Kitchens/Photo-0031.jpg
There is a fraternity house down the street, Delta Chi, and every September they have a grape-stomping toga party for rush week, leaving them with gallons and gallons of crushed grapes to dispose of. In past years we've let them pour it onto the compost piles, but this year they came by when the garden was locked up and left bins of grapes on the sidewalk for us to deal with. I was peeved, and emailed their president to tell him so. I got the most amazing response! They offered to come work in the garden, saying "We are a large group of men that are always looking for community projects, and we are ready and willing to work with you in the near future."
That was music to my ears and I wasted no time. We'd been planning to build a grape arbor so I pinned them down to help out last Saturday and promised them a nice barbecue in return. I was expecting maybe half a dozen guys but then on Friday I found out there would be 16! We never turn away workers, but that meant scrambling around for food.
The guys were amazing. While my friend Dale used a few of them to start the arbor, we had to think quickly to keep the rest occupied. We had them build a broken concrete retaining wall, then dig post holes for eventual fences, then take machetes to some overgrown banana trees, then dig a huge hole for a fish pond. They did all this by noon, and after lunch, half of them stayed until the arbor was finished.
The menu was my favorite simple recipes; barbecued chicken and tri-tip with Ina Garten's amazing barbecue sauce, potato salad, Caesar salad, homemade French bread, and lemon bars. I did plan to make lemonade but ran out of time.
I cooked 5 chickens and 4 tri-tips. The guys ate, and ate, and ate. One of them said, "Well, this beats a frozen corn dog!" I guess they don't do a lot of serious cooking in the frat house.
It was a win win win situation, and I told them that if this is the response I get, I plan to send cranky emails more often.
https://recipeswap.org/fun/wp-content/uploads/Finer_Kitchens/Photo-0031.jpg
