HOW YOU CAN TELL IF THEY LIKE IT

       ONE was outside when I arrived, standing with the smokers, enjoying the sunny day. He let me in and he unlocked the dining room doors for me, assuming Joey wasn't there yet. But Joey was. And Joey was as hyper as I've ever seen him. It was early, by our usual standards, but he was flying around the kitchen as if there were a state of emergency.

       We had planned eggs, grits, sausage, biscuits and fruit. "I'm making this new recipe for cheese grits," I said. "I got it from a friend yesterday."

       Joey was annoyed. "I'm making sausage," he asserted.

       "I know," I said. "And we planned grits and eggs…"

       He reiterated that he was making sausage, as he nervously put 70 patties on baking sheets and shoved them in the oven. That's when I had to slow him down and explain to him that our menu was simple, that I was on-board with it, and that I going to make the grits recipe and help him with everything.

       He calmed. "Oh, I thought you…" Well, he thought I was changing our plans, and for unknown reasons, he'd begun the morning awfully stressed. It wasn't long before he settled down and we began to enjoy our usual endeavors. The shelter is "at capacity," so there is a lot of pressure to serve enough food.

       Take this grits recipe, for example. It makes a 1-1/2 quart casserole. We made it "times ELEVEN." The recipe called for 1 cup of grits. We used 11. It called for two cups of water and two of milk—we used 11 times that. I didn't have the heart to strip the shelter of 11 times 1-1/2 cups of grated cheese, so I skimped on that a bit. Also, we used 22 eggs in the grits recipe. If you whip the eggs and add them to the cooked grits in a certain way, they blend in and give the dish body. Our cooked-up enormous pot of cheese grits filled two large aluminum serving pans which went into the oven for half an hour. While those cooked, Joey and I scrambled about 3 dozen eggs and baked 70 biscuits.

       NO, THE FRUIT ORDER WAS NOT FILLED.

       I set up an assembly line at the serving counter, and we let the pre-release select what they wanted, filling plates individually. It was easy(!), and they seemed pleased to be able to SAY what they wanted. Seconds flowed freely, compliments rang out often, and when the resident homeless came to lunch, the compliments and thanks kept pouring in. Every plate that I saw going to the trash can was empty.

     "Do you know how you can tell if they like the food, Miss Joy?" Joey asked. "They're talking!" And they were. The dining room was just abuzz with happy chatter.

       One fellow came to the counter and looked over the selections carefully before choosing only two items. "I have high cholesterol," he said.

       "Honey," I replied, "Everything here is high in cholesterol—and I have that too."

       "Well," he said, "Just give me some of everything."

       Joey says Miss Lillian doesn't pour bacon grease over the broccoli anymore because they don't have any. What a blessing!

       Two young women came in mid-morning to make the sack lunches. Joey had them make 50! They had such a good time that they said they want to come back after they've worked off their service hours and just work there for the fun of it. How many times have we heard that?

       So the sky is as BLUE as a sky can be, the cold rain is gone, everybody went out today with a full stomach and a smile. We have four resident children, but they were not at lunch. I saw Mr. Huggy bringing folks back from church as I was leaving.

       Joey said that next week he wants to make a macaroni/cheese/broccoli/ham casserole and serve fruit on the side, period. Sounds good… but I won't hold my breath on the fruit.

Cheese grits casserole, sausage & biscuits