Stop the train I wanna get off!

Yeah, we’re down to that crazy time of year, and last week I had a convergence of planning for the MFF Summer Picnic and Anthrocon as well as a high-pressure project at work. I was not a happy camper at all. Thankfully, takaza put up with my antics and I somehow muddled through two out of three problems (Anthrocon is still to come).

I wrapped up all but the last few details of the project I was working on Friday afternoon. That left me feeling pretty good as Dan and I went out to do some last-minute grocery shopping and get everything prepped for the picnic.

Saturday morning, Dan’s mom came over to help us out. They went and picked up the rental grill and banquet tables in Dan’s mom’s car while I staged all the stuff that we were packing and filled the 10-gallon water coolers. Unfortunately, in bringing those downstairs I think I pulled something in my back, which made the rest of the day somewhat unpleasant. We started packing everything into my car and realized that while we could possibly fit everything in two cars, it would be a lot easier and simpler if we took three cars. Dan and his mom went off to Sam’s Club for some last-minute supplies, while I drove up to Antioch Packing House to pick up the 60 pounds of New York strip steak (hand-cut into 8 oz. steaks) that we had ordered.

We all arrived at the park at about the same time, around 12:30 PM. Several good folks jumped in and helped us set up, and we quickly had everything in place – two 10-gal. coolers filled with Gatorade and ice water, an array of snacks to carry folks through the afternoon, and a nice little prep area for cooking, in addition to the 5′ x 2′ grill.

After taking a break and chatting with folks, at about 2:30 PM we got down to business making appetizers. We started out fancy, with asparagus wrapped in prosciutto with lemon. That was OK, but I found the prosciutto to be a bit salty for my taste. I agree the suggestion that some goat cheese would be an excellent addition.

Next was cream-cheese stuffed jalapeno peppers wrapped in bacon and grilled. That was an out-of-the-park home run! The grilling mellowed the jalapeno to reasonable heat levels and the bacon was extremely tasty. I sliced these up into bite-sized pieces and distributed them around the park. Once those were gone we moved on to grilled pineapple, which is always delicious. On fordshepherd‘s advice I added a little cumin before grilling and that was amazing! We also tried cantaloupe (not worth the effort) and bananas (quartered and grilled in the skin – excellent!).

By this time the softball games were over and it was time to move on to the main event: steak! Poor Dan spent four hours in front of a hot grill and was perilously close to heat exhaustion, so after the first of three rounds of steaks on the grill he took a seat and relaxed and recovered while others jumped in to help. I met with the caterers, who brought green salad, redskin potato salad, Southern-style banana pudding, and three platters of homemade cookies. Although we had aimed for a 6 PM serving time, we finally let loose the teeming hordes on the food right at 7 PM. We ate the majority of the catered food and every single steak, even though I think the final turnout was closer to 100 than 120. Everyone raved about the quality of the food, and I was very happy with the final results.

Once all the prizes were given away and everything was cleaned up, we went to work packing everything back into our cars. That was tough, since both Dan and I were completely wiped out, but we somehow managed thanks to help from mirkowuff.

The goal of the picnic was threefold: to increase goodwill for Midwest FurFest, to continue to generate interest in the convention five months out, and to get people interested in volunteering for the convention. I think we accomplished the first two goals; as for the third, we’ll have to wait and see. I really had a good time, and even though it took a lot out of me I’d definitely like to do it again next year. We’ll see how that goes, though.

Oh, and on Sunday? We didn’t do jack. And it was good 🙂

Back to work!