Weddings, Hot Weather and Poor Performance...

This has been a big month for weddings here in DaHo. First, Jeremy and Jaycee got married on 7/7/7 in Sin City with a few thousand other folks. Then Pat and Mel Brown, pool and fishing buddies, got married on 7/16 and then last Saturday, Storm and Jenny.

I was asked to cook for Storm and Jenny's wedding and it was quite a challenge. They had been to a number of our parties and loved my cooking. They rented this very unique event location. It was an old barn that had been redone to have a full commercial kitchen, full bar area and all sorts interesting additions. I was to cook for 100 guests and about 75, or so, showed up. So, there was more food that needed - as usual. I cooked 18 racks of baby back ribs, 3 - 13# beef roasts and a ton of my 'special' rice and a few sides. One of the roasts was sliced at a carving station to make up sandwiches. Jenny's mother runs a pizza restaurant and brought in all sorts of salads and pre-made appetiser sort of dishes. This place had two giant BBQs, one gas and one charcoal, and a full 60" commercial stove with two very large ovens, 4 burners and a grill. It had a full sized commercial style restaurant hood, which looked great, but wasn't vented...

It was a lot of work and little help was available, as everybody was trying to get the 'real' event going. That was my first time in a commercial type kitchen, with little guidance, and I learned a lot. I wasn't feeling that well before and have been recovering since then.

The last three weeks have not been going that well - since the fire. I haven't been sleeping well at all, which is probably at the base of this malaise. Also, I am not playing pool very well and have only had one good fish bite in many days of fishing. I don't know if its just from the hot weather, or just not feeling that good, or what at this point.

Speaking of the fire, a number of the plants and lawn that were so radically affected by the firestorm are now starting to show some recovery which is great news. On the downside, the fountain, which I thought I had fixed and had been working for a couple of months now, started leaking and I must repair it again.

This weekend is the gun safety/CCP class and then there are no more scheduled activities for a few weeks until Grandson Oliver arrives for a little fishing vacation. That is always BIG FUN here in DaHo...