My good friend asked me months ago if I would help with the food for her daughters wedding. Of course. At the time it was to make cheesy potatoes for 400. 400 people. That's right. 400. I have done it for 250, but 400? Never. And turns out, I still haven't made cheesy potatoes for 400. They went with the caterers suggestion of new potatoes. Praise God. I was a nervous wreck over how to make, deliver and serve cheesy potatoes for 400 at an outdoor venue. So I only needed green beans for 400. And cookies.
At 11:45 p.m., the night before the wedding I get a call. Answer it? Pretend I am not driving home from the big city after a mini shopping spree with my girls? Pretend I didn't get the call? Yeah. I answered it. Could I help put up tulle at 8 a.m.? Certainly! Ever tried to tell a distressed bride's mother NO? Me neither. So after arriving home and rolling into bed at 1:30, I drug my fat butt up to the wedding venue and hung up tulle, staple gunned a few decorations, set up heavy ass tables and did general clean up.
I must say that it was a beautiful outdoor reception.
The problem became the 18 LARGE cans of green beans that need to be opened and dumped into roasters, seasoned, cooked and delivered to the wedding reception venue. Coach calls me and takes directions. Coach calls me and turns out 9 cans of green beans won't fit in a roaster like I thought they would. Only about 6 cans fit in a roaster. Finish up at wedding venue, drive to Gibson's (greatest store ever) and buy a roaster. We are now the proud owners of our own roaster. I race home, wash it, dump in green beans and begin the hauling to the wedding reception process.
3 roasters of green beans. Very full roasters. Sloshing all over the back of my Yukon. Oh well. As we start to haul the green beans into the wedding venue and plug them in, we realize that we have an issue. Roasters pull a lot of juice. We were throwing the breaker at home like crazy and guess what? Same thing at the wedding venue. By this time, the wedding venue owner, Tiff, is flustered, Coach is flustered, Tiff's brother-in-law is flustered and I am thinking that the only way this is going to work is to drink tequila. Straight. From. The. Bottle. Have I mentioned that I am 44 years old and I have NEVER tasted tequila in my life?
Tiff calls her husband and we run extension cords (orange ones--totally legal extension cords) to different outlets and problem solved. Sort of.
It's 1:45. Drive home and step into shower for to shower for a 2:30 wedding. Send Frack to church to save seats for the 3 of us. Have I mentioned that Frick was the photographers assistant and College Girl was in Wichita for the first of 3 weddings she attended that day?
Leave for church at 2:20ish Arrive at church at 2:25ish. (Yes, I am low maintenance. I can be ready and look GOOD in a matter of minutes. Just ask Coach.) As I pull into the backside of church, I notice that the Toyota looks like it is sitting at an odd angle. Sure enough. Flat tire. This is the vehicle that Coach and Frack are planning to take to the other wedding we needed to be at at 4:00. Coach waits outside. I walk to the front of the very long line waiting to be seated at church and go inside like I own the place. Go up to the choir loft, get keys from Frack and head back out to Coach. Give him keys. Go back into church and sit down. Coach comes in sometime later, the tire is changed and all is well. If you believe that, then I have a bridge to sell you.
Coach and Frack leave on the heels of the bride and groom for the next wedding. I wait a little while and then head up to meet the caterer with the rest of the meal. I get into the Toyota, start it up and guess what? I have no idea how he thought that vehicle was going to make a 60 mile round trip with the. low. fuel. light. on. I wasn't completely sure I was going to make it across town.
All was well. Dinner and reception was lovely. Bride and Groom were lovely. Drunk people? Eh.
But the Cookies.
On Friday, I made 15 dozen cookies for the wedding. Which is no big deal. Seriously, people. I lovelovelove to make cookies. And personally, I believe that I rock at making cookies.
I made 18 dozen snickerdoodles.
10 dozen for the wedding, 3 dozen for us to eat and 5 dozen for the freezer. Ever have a frozen snickerdoodle?
And I made Amish Sugar Cookies (no pictures--sorry). First batch made 6 dozenish. I had a partner for my cookie making--she was making chocolate chip and chocolate crinkle. We had discussed how many to make. We just weren't sure how many.
So I decided, I didn't have enough sugar cookies. So I started another batch. Mix up dough. I think this just doesn't look right. I go thru the ingredient list. 1 cup of softened butter--check. 1 cup of vegetable oil--check. 1 cup of sugar--check. 1 cup of powdered sugar--check. 2 eggs--check. Vanilla0--check. 4 and 1/2 cups of flour--not so check. When I have added all the flour, I think that the dough doesn't look quite right. I panic and think that I haven't added all the flour. Which is strange because I measure my flour into a separate bowl and add it a little at a time. I decided to add another 1/2 cup. Still not quite right. Added another 1/2 cup. Seems all good.
Not so good. Turns out I did not need additional flour. What I needed was to stop baking cookies because I was tired.
Because I have baked. 15. freaking. doorstops. Suckers would have broken a set of dentures in two had anyone tried to eat them.
End of cookie baking. I scooped them off the cookie sheet into the trash and dumped the rest of the dough on top of them, got into the Yukon and went to the Big City for a mini shopping spree and all was well.
Just sayin'.
