Switchin' in the kitchen

Today my nieces Rosie and Millie and my sister Katie helped me cook at the soup kitchen. The jazz singer Peggy Farrell cooked with us too.

We made the jambalaya pictured above. Thank you, Rosie, for the picture! I have been reluctant to put pictures of my cooking projects on this Web log because did you ever notice how awful most people's food pictures look? I am sure the food is yummy but the photos do not usually do them justice. There is a reason there are people who specialize in taking pictures of food.

Rosie might well wind up being one of those people! Because that is a not-bad picture of our jambalaya.

That was a wonderful jambalaya but it will never be seen or tasted again because like any one of a thousand performances Leonard Pennario gave of Ravel's "La Valse," it is completely unique. The jambalaya was fashioned artfully out of all kinds of various frozen leftovers: a sausage and chicken stew, a frozen bag of shrimp and mussels, a tray of something that was labeled Spanish Rice. We added some fresh vegetables and onions and spices and Zatarain's Creole seasoning and it was magnificent.

The girls made a chocolate cake.

After that we went to Spot Coffee and drank hot chocolate and were all high on ourselves. We were planning what to cook should they be able to join Peggy and me again. My sister liked the idea of shepherd's pie. I made chicken pot pie at the kitchen once so I like that idea.

I am happy volunteering at this one kitchen because you get to design your own menu and cook it up. I did not want to volunteer as somebody's slave, just stuck in some corner somewhere chopping onions. But oh, that reminds me! Before the girls got there, Peggy and I and my brother George were chopping onions. You could not breathe! We were all crying.

It was like Kent State!

We had to open the window!

These were strong old onions, that was for sure.

But they made a great jambalaya!