Rotating Entrees

If you join us at The Wednesday Community Meal, you'll quickly learn that our entrees are always a changing.

We seat six to a table and it's common for guests to have a different entree than their tablemates. And, that's just the way it has to be because most of the food we serve is gleaned from our community partners — Good Samaritan Hospital, Phil's Uptown Meat Market, Pizza Schmizza, Ken's Artisan Bakery, Grand Central Bakery, New Seasons Market, Trader Joe's, Starbucks, SP Provisions and The Oregon Food Bank.  Utilizing gleaned food serves two purposes, it keeps our costs down and it prevents perfectly good food from going to waste.

Our regular guests are so understanding of the quirky rotating entree part of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral's free for everyone meal. I've even been told that it adds a little excitement to their dining experience. 

"What you serve is always a surprise." said one of today's guests. "I thought I was going to get the ribs but I got turkey and that was pretty good."

The one thing that is consistent is that we always do our best to serve a delicious and nutritious meal. And, we strive to accommodate dietary needs such as vegetarian, vegan and even gluten-free.

We served 279 meals today. Here are some of them:

The first guests in the door today got oven roasted chicken made by volunteer Terri. Oh my gosh it looked good, magazine cover good! The whole chicken was gleaned from Trader Joe's.

The barbecue ribs we served came from Good Samaritan Hospital.

The turkey also came from Good Samaritan Hospital. The potatoes came from The Oregon Food Bank and we made the kale and cabbage side dish from greens gleaned from New Seasons Market.

We made lamb meatballs from ground lamb from SP Provisions.

The chicken fried steak also came from SP Provisions.

Special Touches

A pretty salad with a sprinkling of chive blossoms.

Serving hundreds during a two hour lunch service at the Wednesday Community Meal means that we pretty much always have a hopping kitchen and dining room. But that doesn't mean we are too busy to skimp on presentation and just shovel out the food.

When guests arrive at our free, everyone is welcome, weekly meal, they are first greeted by our kind maidre'd Michael, and just like in a restaurant, are seated at a table, already set with placemats, napkins and silverware.

Once seated, six to a table, guests are served four courses by volunteer servers — salad, soup, entree and dessert. They are also offered coffee, tea and hot chocolate by our volunteer baristas, Dean and Dan.

Today we served 356 meals and I can honestly say every one was plated with care and had a special touch like a garnish of fresh chives over ribs or a drizzle of cheese sauce over roasted beans. Putting care into the food is important and we are so blessed to have a large team of volunteers who work hard to make our guests feel special.

We also used chives to garnish the ribs we served today.

The salads we served today were especially beautiful and topped with homemade croutons made from bread donated by Grand Central Bakery and a sprinkling of sweet just-picked chive blossoms.

It's wonderful working together as a team to make nice and deserving people feel treated.

Here are some pictures of our great team taken today by volunteer Cheryl who every week makes the desserts for the meal as well as keeps things running smoothly in the dining room.

Our hardworking volunteer baristas, Dean and Dan.

Two members of our super dishwashing team, Kevin and Bill.

Our maitre'd Michael and Fred who is in charge of the whole operation. Fred doesn't just volunteer on Wednesdays, he works pretty much every single day of the week, making sure we have everything we will need for a successful meal. And Michael does more as well, he orders all the food we get from The Oregon Food Bank.

I look forward to seeing my lovely friend Veronica each Wednesday. She comes to eat but also pitches in by busing dishes.

Why We Work

Cheryl with fresh fruit cups of honeydew from The Oregon Food Bank and beautiful strawberries donated from Shannon who works at Trinity.

It's not easy cooking and serving food to an unknown number of people every week at the Wednesday Community Meal at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral.

And, we don't even know the majority of what ingredients we will have to work with until Tuesday afternoon since most of the food is gleaned the day before the meal from generous businesses like Food Front Cooperative Grocery in Hillsdale, Spring Hill Organic Farm in Albany, Good Samaritan Hospital, Phil's Uptown Meat Market, Grand Central Bakery, Pizza Schmizza, Baker & Spice and Starbucks.

We also weekly "shop the dock" at The Oregon Food Bank, looking for free items we can use. Every week is a surprise.

But despite this, the work is rewarding and something I and the other volunteers love.  I've even heard my friend Bill who volunteers each week to wash dishes say "it's the highlight of my week." Now that's saying something.

What makes the work rewarding is that the volunteers are the nicest people and the guests are lovely and appreciative.

My friend Cheryl who oversees the dining room volunteers shared these stories from today:

A male guest told volunteer Dorrie that he "hadn't eaten in two days" and was so hungry and really looking forward to the meal.

Another male guest told Dorrie "this is such a wonderful place," and then enthusiastically said "let the feast begin."

And volunteer Jan who was stationed at the exit door, said one man said as he was leaving that he was so happy because "it's my birthday today and I got all of my favorite foods."  That would be homemade pigs 'n' a blanket and ribs from Phil's Uptown Meat Market.

We served 296 meals today.

We made pigs 'n' a blanket today with Hebrew National Hotdogs and homemade dough that we spiked with chunks of cheese. The guests loved it.

What a treat!

Last Community Meal Of 2012

Santa Claus? Or is it longtime volunteer Dan? Whoever it is, he worked very hard serving coffee, tea and hot chocolate and made our guests smile.

Today was our last Wednesday Community Meal of 2012.
Trinity Episcopal Cathedral will be closed the Wednesday after Christmas so the next service will be on January 2, 2013.

It's been a busy year at the Wednesday Community Meal. Every month we've seen the number of meals we serve continue to rise. We've also increased our gleaning to help fight the increase in food costs. Without the support of organizations and businesses like The Oregon Food Bank, Good Samaritian Hospital, Pizza Schmizza, Starbucks, Baker & Spice, Spring Hill Organic Farm, Phil's Meat Market and Grand Central Bakery, we couldn't feed our guests with our limited budget. The gleaning has been a real blessing to our program.

When we started the Wednesday Lunch in 2004, there were just two of us handing out peanut butter sandwiches and if we served 50 we thought that was huge.

In the Spring of 2008 we served our first full-service indoor meal and our numbers were hardly ever over 150 for that first year.

Now, four years later, we regularly serve between 250 and 320 meals each Wednesday. Guest come for the food but I believe they return because of the hospitality. Everyone is welcome and treated with kindness.

Thanks to our wonderful hardworking volunteers, we served 289 meals today.

We had numerous meal changes today. One of the most popular was roasted pork with gravy, asparagus and a baked potato.

With school out for Winter Break, we had extra help from some young volunteers today. Here is high school student Zane stirring a pan of teriyaki chicken.

The meal couldn't go on without our hardworking dishwashers. Longtime volunteer Bill even smiles as he works.

Working Together

We served 324 meals today at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral's Wednesday Community Meal. The meal service is just two hours long so we were busy busy busy.

By the time we were just 45 minutes into the service, 180 plates had already gone out. The free for anyone meal is obviously meeting a need in our community and we couldn't do it without our dedicated volunteers who work hard and do it with such grace.

Here are just a few of the volunteers who make it happen:

Longtime volunteers Dorrie, Margaret and Carol serve in the dining room. They work hard bringing plates of food from the kitchen to the tables and they do it with a smile.

Jane usually works the dining room but is always happy to help wherever needed. Today she poured glasses of lemonade.

Lydia has been volunteering since the start of the Wednesday meal. Every week she organizes the front table - greeting guests and offering any extra food that we have. Today she handed out loaves of bread donated from Grand Central Bakery.

Bread And Croutons

Homemade croutons ready to be toasted in a 400 degree oven.

 At the Wednesday Community Meal we are lucky to receive loafs of crusty artisan bread donated from Grand Central Bakery.

We hand out the loaves to guests and slice it to make sandwiches, toast and homemade croutons.

The homemade croutons are especially popular.

To make them, we toss chunks of the bread in a bit of olive oil and add kosher salt, black pepper, garlic and herbs.  Then we lay the bread on a sheet pan and toast them in a 400 degree oven for 5 to 7 minutes.


Purchased croutons are expensive and filled with preservatives. These croutons are way better and the best part is that we are utilizing old bread.

We served 195 meals today at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral and lots of homemade croutons on a salad of fresh greens gleaned from Spring Hill Organic Farm.