Birthdays are Special at Our Chalet

or: How I almost killed someone with my Meatloaf.

More kitchen disasters. This learning curve is brutal.

Before I get to the near-death part I will tell about my birthday cake. Yesterday I made a delicious yellow cake with chocolate frosting. There is a boy here with his sister/mother (I presume) and yesterday was his birthday. I made him a sad-looking but recognizable Lego cake. I hope he liked it.

Now, to the more interesting part:

Last night, I made meatloaf. It was tasty, but due to the fact that hauer flockli is NOT anywhere near the same as Quaker Quick Oats, the loaf was sort of crumbly. The oats sort of balled up and made the meat almost airy inside what should be a dense greasy chunk. I got a few good pieces out of it, but mostly it was an abstraction of meatloaf. Perhaps I am an edgy cook somewhere deep down.

Because the loaves didn't hold together as well I got less pieces of loaf than I anticipated and there were no pieces left for the staff. No food for the staff! There were left overs sure, but mostly they were hanging around my back kitchen window looking mighty pitiful while Ben tried to nuke them all some left overs in a timely manner. They ended up eating left over spaghetti noodles with meatloaf chunky crumbles on them with a bit of gravy. Whateves, food is fuel, right?

I wasn't too concerned about What they ate because I was awfully busy trying to make sure no one Died in the dining room. There are people on site with a horrible allergy to Tomatoes this week. Meatloaf has tomatoes in it. I thought Everyone Knew That. Apparently not the people who really should know that. When all the loaves had gone out the window no one came up for the Special Diet loaf. (Which incidentally, was the best loaf I made all night. Next time I will make the loaves with bread soaked in stock...that was delicious).

So, I ran out of the kitchen and tried to not look horribly panicy though I was imagining the tomato-contaminated fork of meat getting closer to lips it should not touch. After about a minute of looking calmly I yelled out 'Kate!'. The woman who I was looking for was in mid-bite and understood immediately.

The mother and daughter bolted out of their seats--which was quite a feat in the dining hall as it is at MAX capacity--and I believe said something to the effect of 'Oh God get this away from me'! I feel awful. These special diets are bringing me down.

This is the second time this has happened...last time it was milk allergy girl on curry night. A similar scene ensued--me running through the dining room snatching a plate of food from a young girl in mid-bite. At what point do these people will allergies start taking responsibility? The nut allergy people are very good about asking about nuts, but seems like everyone else is happy to just eat unless there are big red warning flags for them.

I know the easy solution is to make announcements every night. That's fine, I don't mind at all. I'm a bit annoyed that the staff on the other side of my kitchen hatch haven't given me an opportunity to do it before they send people scrambling in a mad dash for food. Tonight though. I can't have this on my conscience.

Birthdays are very special at Our Chalet, unfortunately it seems like everyone has a birthday all at once. This week I have a birthday every day but Thursday. I'll still be making a cake on Thursday though because Friday is my day off and the volunteers don't have time to do such things.

I've set a precedent of serving the birthday-guest a shaped cake. Last week I made a bunny shaped cake, last night I made a lego shaped cake. I'm not sure what shape of cake I will serve tonight. Suggestions?

In other news: Yesterday I made: 11 meatloafs, 6 birthday cakes, about 20 pounds of mashed potatoes and 100 bratwursts.