Small Kitchen Big Results
When I imagined coming to Iona to work in the kitchen I imagined lots of chopping and little more. I didn’t imagine the variety of jobs in the kitchen. I also didn’t imagine how much I’d be doing on my own! Pretty cool.
First the chopping. Because the menu is vegetarian there is a lot of chopping. When we pull out potatoes to wash and chop there are 75 on the table for us to process. The volume of carrots we use is a wonder. The deliveries come twice a week. I’m happy to report we have a dumb waiter to help us get everything up to the second floor kitchen.
Every week the new guests are assigned tasks. One of the tasks is to be a chopper in the kitchen. Last week we had a woman who walked into the kitchen and proudly announced herself as a “Stone cold bitch. I don’t cry when I chop onions.” It was a little shocking to hear but a very welcome skill. She chopped piles of onions all week long. Four to six people come to help chop for about half an hour to forty-five minutes and we love them for it.
While they are chopping we are doing things like making vast amounts of hummus, pudding for afters, and the entree. Pudding here means dessert, not the smooth creamy dessert I love. My first day I was given the recipe for an orange polenta cake. I read over the recipe and started in. If there are ever any questions it’s easy to ask and learn where an ingredient is kept or how a piece of machinery is used.
The quantities of what we do is fascinating and shocking all at once. First up for my orange polenta cake, zest a dozen oranges. Next crack 36 eggs. Measure liters of oil and grams of sugar. It’s weird and very fun. I made a vat of batter. The pot was so full I had to ask for help stirring it. We thought there would be enough for three large pans of cake. We ended up with five! Good thing is turned out delicious.
There are some jobs in the kitchen that happen weekly; one of them is grating 3 very large blocks of aged white cheddar cheese. The Hobart mixer has a grating attachment for this. Once it’s set up the thing is taller than me! It a treat to buzz through so much cheese in about 15 minutes. In fact it takes longer to set up and break down and wash the thing than it does to grate the cheese.
Another thing that happens weekly is making hummus. I got a turn to do that this week. The immersion blender I used to stir it all together is three feet long and rather heavy. I was instructed I needed to set it all up and submerge it in the chickpeas before I turned it on. Otherwise there’d be a large mess to clean up.
The kitchen is run by Anja and Declan, both paid staff members here at the abbey. We are their “volleys” volunteers. And they never seem to forget that we are here as volunteers. They are not demanding or unreasonable. No one is ever shamed or blamed. Even when mistakes are made there is a calm fix and sometimes we all chip in to make it right. This is nothing like any of the cooking competition shows you’ve ever watched.
This kitchen is a place where the goal is to work in a calm safe place with a friendly team and make good food for our guests. It’s hard work for sure. My back hurt the first week and I am still taking a wee nap after my shift each day. But I love going to the kitchen each day. There is so much to do, to learn, to enjoy. And since I work in the kitchen I get to rummage in the fridge for leftovers for breakfast.
I like getting to know my cohorts too. Some of the jobs are easy enough to do that there is time to visit as we work. For one thing the dish washing is endless! We fill the large sink with all our working utensils and pans and bowls and as the shift goes on it becomes a mountain of washing. Whenever there is a break we wash, rinse and dry. The kitchen is small enough that we have to keep up on the washing all shift so we have the things we need clean and ready to go. One shift recently we washed the small milliliters measuring pitcher a dozen times! It was so necessary for so many recipes.
Deep cleaning the kitchen on Fridays has a very fun bit for me…I like to wipe down the small walk in fridge. It feels so good when the kitchen has made me hot! I close the door and have a good time. There’s a panic button so I can get out of course, but I am not panicking believe me.