I was both a Youth Coordinator (for about 80 LGBT youth) and a Men’s Group Facilitator for two groups of about 50–150 men a week. The idea was to have a repast afterwards, a meeting generally lasting bout 90 minutes to 3 hours. Sometimes I was both the facilitator and the designated cook so I got really good at preparing large quantities of food within a period of time, having quizzes or videos so that I could slip out of the room and pre-planning.
Rice or Pasta
I would buy a 5/10lb bag of parboiled rice and a box of pasta—-generally a dollar or so a piece. The pasta I would make at home and carry an odd sack of 5lbs of pasta to work. But the rice was my secret weapon—-you can do parboiled rice in a microwave. I would do say a pound per 10 people so generally a huge bowl in the microwave with butter, salt and pepper then splayed out onto a tray.
Chicken
I got into this whole mess being just an attending member to the meetings after work (down the block) I was often hungry at 6pm-8pm and didn’t want to be rude and bring in an order of food for myself. But I was willing to. I asked the Facilitator who basically did chips, soda, snacks for the repast what if I made a donation of some food—-like $20 worth…so I could get a meal in more substantial than chips and soda. he eagerly agreed and what I would do is order 2 boxes of 13 pieces of Popeye’s chicken—-one mild, one spicy, bring a bag of rice and some frozen vegetables to microwave. Boom! A nice meal—-maybe not a whole dinner but everyone was generally considerate to cut up pieces or wait for seconds once everyone had their first plate.
Then I noticed in the supermarket huge bags of chicken legs/thighs so I would random it up and buy say 4 bags—-$20—-then barbecue it at home. And again in a multiple plastic bagged sack—-never let them see how the food gets there—-bring it in and add a few bottles of BBQ sauce, some chopped onions. As long as it makes it to a platter pretty, it’s good. Never let anyone into your kitchen.
Sometimes I would just bake the chicken to a nice crisp and sprinkle onions and chopped peppers on it reheated at the agency.
Meat Sauce
Then I started varying it up. So I would buy say $15 worth of ground chuck and a few jars of tomato sauce. Again always onions, peppers, maybe even mushrooms and cook the meat at home. Yes, again a meat sack., Then mix it all together and splay it out with a tray of pasta.
Employment and Food Politics
Then Bernard the facilitator said that when I helped to co-teach it inspired him to follow his dream of opening a church—-would I take over permanently?
At first I volunteered then I came on as the Youth Coordinator so I got to be a part of the Agency’s food purchasing. There were some issues. The Program Coordinator (my supervisor) was…..he had issues with me and a social worker. His issue was essentially the the Exec. Dir. hired us without including him, as he had done in the past. Not our faults but he split us—-me evil, social worker good—-because he spent way too much time trying to seduce him. Way too much. Like creepy amounts of time.
But I got to see why the food was so stingy at the men’s and youth workshops. There was a monthly shopping and the PC ran the HIV+ youth group with the social worker. But the better foods went to the HIV+ youth and the HIV+ men’s group. Any group that wasn’t directly HIV+ got what was left over or chips and soda.
Oh. I see. Gauntlet raised. Challenge accepted.
I’d been cooking for about 20+ years by then, since I was a child, it was how I earned my allowance and had done large functions for my mother in my teens and one of my stepfathers was even a professional chef—-so I had a good culinary training/experience.
I hadn’t even whipped out my superpowers on the jammy jam.
As Bernard’s going away/birthday event—-I broke the bitch.
Two large pans of sliced ribeye steaks.
- 2 pans each of Lobster in butter sauce, Lobster Fra Davialo and steamed Lobster.
- Half a dozen buttercream, chocolate, carrot cakes. (I’d had them made at a local bakery)
- 3 pans of rice—-1 plain buttered rice, 1 Sofrito rice with red peas (Sofrito or refogado is a sauce used as a base in Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American cooking. In Spanish cuisine, sofrito consists of garlic, onion, peppers and tomatoes cooked in olive oil); 1 pan of Recaito rice (Recaito is a green aromatic puree of onions, cilantro (recao) leaves, garlic, green peppers and ajies dulces (small sweet chile peppers) with green peas. Red, white, green rice in three different pans. It was beautiful.
- Then, because I believe in vegetables (unlike most Black people it seems sometimes) a pan of buttered corn and broccoli.
- Everyone contributed sodas and juices. It was beautiful.
Except for the cakes, I’d made everything myself and arrived with shopping carts of trays of food.
Ironically the PC and Exec,. Dir. left early and weren’t there but my reputation was solidified. You can give me pebbles and I’ll reach into my bag of tricks and bust out a decadent feast.
At another men’s group, on Fridays’, average 40+ men, we were revolving facilitating but I had a nice full kitchen and one workshop was to be about healthy eating to be lead by two—-health nuts is the polite term. So I planned out a pasta menu—-regular, spinach and wheat pasta with a meat sauce and a robust salad and juices.
Ok, the two guys both came into the kitchen at separate times “to check on the cooking”. I politely stood there listening to them because it was their first time leading the group and sometimes annoyed silence is being supportive. One guy explained to me that what he did was brown ground chuck, pour off all the fat THEN boil in to drain it farther and then roast it and wash it again.
I asked him—-why eat that?
He was perplexed. I gently explained to him that tonight’s meal would have a focus on being healthy but that we couldn’t reverse all bodily ills in one meal. Also I had over the years worked on my food, tasting good. Get out of my kitchen.
The second guy came in and explained to me how to cook pasta. In a pot. I nodded politely and told him I’d been cooking since childhood, over 25+ years—-get the fuck out of my kitchen. With a smile.
Two hours later a grand and beautiful feast was laid out. What I discovered at another meeting when I was called out of the kitchen and Heckle and Jeckle were left to watch chicken roast—-which they burned. Was that they couldn’t cook. The screwed up my chicken AND I was left to take the hit for their foolishness'.
I take cooking a bit personally. lol
My new addiction—-I get addicted to varying styles, recipes, etc issssssssssss
Splatchcocked Chickens!!!
(White meat (the breasts) cooks and dries out faster than dark meat (legs and thighs). With a traditional trussed chicken, it can be hard not to overcook the breasts as the legs finish cooking. Since spatchcocked birds lay completely flat, this method produces even cooking in both the breasts and legs.)
I love splitting a chicken and pan grilling a chicken and then barbecuing it, deep gravying it, roasting it—-I do about 2–4 of them at a time and then serve them or cut them up and take them for lunch at work. What I like about it is I can seasoning them very well—-or last night I cut so fresh garlic in half, no peeling, put in a stick of butter and just keep basting it over and over for an amazing garlic chicken.
I’ll probably do it a few more times with fresh lemons and ground pepper then maybe a deep cacciatore. (Cacciatore means hunter in Italian, and alla cacciatora translates to a 'hunter-style' meal with chicken (or rabbit), onions, tomatoes, herbs, vegetables, and usually wine or vinegar.)
The years I was teaching all those groups, no one really knew how about 50% of my pleasure was in the cooking, the meal preparation and planning.
All of the agencies have collapsed been run out of business—-after I left—-bad management and casual attention to food. lol
#KylePhoenix
#TheKylePhoenixShow
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