Many Meals

Longtime community meal volunteer Mary Ann with a meatloaf meal. She and all of the other dining room volunteers are amazing! Serving nonstop for two hours is hard work but they do it while smiling and taking the time to visit with our guests and make them feel welcome.

It was another very busy day at the Wednesday Community Meal. We served 372 meals during our two hour service at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Northwest Portland.

The entrees we served were meatloaf, pork spare ribs, pork short ribs, enchiladas, chile rellenos and vegetarian lasagna. It's typical that we change our menu at least three or four times during the meal because that's just what you have do do when you utilize gleaned and donated food to feed a crowd.

The pork short ribs were particularly popular with today's guests and were actually short rib trimmings that were donated by SP Provisions. We seasoned them with chili powder, cumin, garlic, salt and oregano, moistened them with a bit of tomato sauce and cooked them long and slow until they were very very tender. The meat pieces might not have been uniform in size but they were darn delicious and there were many requests for seconds.

In additon to the entrees, there was soup, salad and dessert — a full four-course meal,  free to everyone, no questions asked.

One of the side dishes we served today was roasted red potatoes with caramelized Walla Walla Sweet onions. The potatoes were gleaned from The Oregon Food Bank and the onions were gleaned from New Seasons Market.

Our dishwashing team is the best! They are the last to leave after a long day's work but never complain and even seem to have some fun. Craig helped keep things especially light today with his green hairdo in honor of St. Patrick's Day.