Cooking Up Something Good...

It's Thanksgiving Eve and that means just one thing.

Late tonight, while visions of sugar plums dance in your head, or while you are thinking of ways to get out of having to go to your Sister's house again,
a small group of people are set to gather.

There will be laughter, hugs, and maybe a beer or two hoisted!

You are thinking Party, right?

Not quite.

Parry Tong, Owner / Manager of Lafayette's wonderful Postino Restaurant, will serve dinner as usual to his Wednesday night crowd.
Then as the last dinner goes out the kitchen a wonderful thing happens.

Turkeys, pumpkin pie filling, potatoes, bread, and all the normal fixings for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner start appearing out of nowhere.

Normal people, everyday kind of people, many with not much cooking skill at all, slowly start taking over the kitchen.

The Turkeys get cleaned and buttered, the bread gets cut and made into dressing, the pumpkin filling and crusts become pies and so on.

Parry isn't making dinner for tomorrow for his family.
That'll just have to wait.

What he and a group of friends have done for many years now is adopt a dozen or so local family's in need each year.
Come tomorrow morning these familys will be delivered a complete T-Day dinner compliments of this wonderful group of people.

Parry isn't alone, Karen Cordill will certainly be there,
Chef, Mike Zeiter usually hangs out to supervise,
Karen's brother, Bryan will be there as well.

The highlight of the evening: The "Ceremonial Buttering of the Birds"







The work will go on until the turkeys get into the oven.
Then the "slackers" like me and my daughter head on home (usually around 1:00 AM) while the "die hards" hang around till the birds are done.
Around 8:00 am in the morning, the food is packed up and the deliveries start.

In the end, the group will have brought a little ray of sunshine to a small group of people.

The group has no name, it seeks no publicity.
It's just quietly goes about it's way.
There is no donation drive, no website, no telethon.
Most all of the food is donated by the group.

Come Christmas, they'll do it all again.
These family's have kids, and kids need clothes, kids need toys, kids need hope.
The group will make sure everyone has something to open up come X-Mas morning, even Mom!

If you think this is a nice thing, I encourage you to go out and create a group for yourself. Need help? Give me a call.
Too much, but still want to help?
We would gladly accept anything you have to offer.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Mike