Working , with a purpose…

Yesterday was a “bake” day.  At the Manor, I am currently being trained in the art of institutional food preparation. It is nothing like I have studied before. Recipes are very basic, sometimes requiring the mere combining of ingredients already pre-cut, and waiting for some additional liquid. Other times, a perfectly good plate of food, must be run thru a high performance food processor, until it resembles a pudding..This is called a “blended” dinner. Oh, and just to confuse me further, dinner, is actually lunch. One has supper, for the evening meal. Lunch , is merely a term reserved for another parallel universe, somewhere far , far away.  Yesterday, unlike every other day, up till now, was a “bake day” I spent the better part of 8 hours, trading my time, at a very generous wage…..FOR PLAY!   (Sometimes , I have to pinch myself, when I am “working”, because it feels like summertime….Like walking after a rain… …The way you feel when everything coming out of your mouth makes people laugh, or when your dogs greet you at the end of a day, and are cartwheeling in their unbounded joy!  I don’t want to sound cheesy, but this is how “work” feels, when I’m in the kitchen)  …Don’t get me wrong, I don’t actually relish peeling, cutting, and dicing  150 lbs of veggies but  I  DO GO to that other place, even in the midst of my callous making , finger –staining, carpal tunnel forming  activity.. Bake days, like yesterday , are different. We were on such of a roll, that my peer kept exclaiming , “I’m actually going to be leaving on time!” ,repeatedly.  NO, I didn’t make Opera cakes, or Bavarois or Viennoiseries. I didn’t whip up mousses, and Italian meringue buttercream cakes…I did however, make some very basic, but tasty goods that will hopefully make a seniors day, a little bit better. Maybe, they’ll have something to mark a day that would normally be reserved only for humdrum, or tedium, or worse still…PAIN…I am blessed beyond measure to be gifted with this endowment.. My last 2 years have prepared me for something that I could not, nor would not ever have expected…Sometimes , just making a retiree a cheeseburger, with all the trimmings, when everyone else is getting French toast…. Can make all the difference….I know this, because HE told me so!!