Thank You Trader Joe's!

Today's lunch of roast beef, rice and seasoned tomatoes and cucumber.

The majority of the food we served today at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral's Wednesday Community Meal was kindly donated by Trader Joe's on NW Glisan Street. The store gave us six small beef roasts and more than 40 packages of pastrami and thinly sliced roast beef, expensive proteins that helped us serve 314 meals for under 80-cents each.

We served the tender roast to the first group of guests who were seated, with sides of rice and sliced and seasoned tomatoes and cucumber. The very first guest in line had been waiting since 7 a.m. this morning so it felt great to treat him to a wonderful lunch.

Pastrami and roast beef sandwiches topped with sauerkraut and cheese came later during the two-hour lunch service and were also well-received in the dining room.  We served them alongside crispy oven-roasted potatoes that we seasoned with garlic, oregano, chili powder, salt and pepper.

The sandwiches we served today came with a side of crispy oven-roasted potatoes.

Also on the menu today were teriyaki chicken skewers, baked white fish, pork tenderloin, sliced beef over rice and salmon burgers that we topped with tartar sauce, capers and fresh dill. Utilizing primarily donated food to feed a crowd is always a challenge but it's a satisfying one. It means we have to be creative and change our menu frequently to use what we have but the extra work is worth it —  it saves money and stops perfectly good food from going to waste. And, the very best part is that we made a lot of hungry people happy today.


 

Lots Of Delicious Cake

Jane, Diana and Dorrie, our wonderful volunteer servers, worked really hard today.  They helped serve 310 meals and there was a constant line to get inside for for nearly an hour and a half after we opened our doors at 11 a.m.

Our guests got to eat delicious cake at the Wednesday Community Meal today thanks to the generosity of Baker & Spice which donated an assortment of flavors for us to serve. The local bakery's four-layer, all-butter cakes are made with only the best ingredients and are sooo goood. It's such a pleasure to be able to treat our guests. Thank you Baker & Spice!

German Chocolate Cake

Chocolate Ganache Cake

Black & White Cake

Carrot Cake

Latte Cake

The Wednesday Community Meal is very fortunate to have the support of Baker & Spice and other generous businesses in our community because their donations keep our operating costs down and help us feed everyone who comes to Trinity Episcopal Cathedral between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Wednesdays.

In addition to the cake, we served soup, salad and an assortment of entrees. We started out with homemade meatloaf and then moved on to chicken skewers, fish, ham and finally chicken curry. Our guests were very happy.

We served 310 meals.