I’ve had a busy few days and am now in introvert recharge mode.

Friday through Sunday was the church and choir retreat. We go to this retreat center in the mountains that used to be a Victorian spa town. There are these huge old hotel buildings that look like something out of Somewhere in Time, plus little cottages. When the spa went out of business early in the 20th century, the Episcopal church bought it and has been adding on to it. We had three days of huge meals together in the dining hall, choir rehearsals, hiking, a church service in the outdoor church (I think it’s now officially designated as a cathedral shrine), and the Saturday-night entertainment was an 80s dance party. Though there were a few of us older folks who remember the 80s, it was the teenagers and college kids who were really into it. They knew all the words to all the songs. It was a teenager who was DJing, using music from his phone. That would have been like my peers knowing all the Glenn Miller music. I did because I was a weird kid, but we didn’t have 40s dance parties and sing along to all the music. I found an old dress I had from high school, and since it fit, I wore authentic 80s attire. It was funny how different my real 80s clothes looked from the costumes others had put together.

I got home Sunday afternoon and collapsed, but then I had to get up and out again because I was volunteering for an event. There’s a community garden that a group of sisters got started. Their main goal is to provide fresh, healthy food to people who might not be able to afford it, and they deliver to seniors and families with children. But they fund this by also selling produce at a market stand. The market is about a 10-minute walk away, so I go on most weekends during the season to buy whatever they have and see what I can make with it.

Meanwhile, there’s a bakery/restaurant building just down the hill from my house. The back of it would be across the street from me if the ground were flat, but there’s essentially a cliff. Apparently, it was a really good bakery, but it closed during the pandemic and has been empty the whole time I’ve lived here. Recently, the owner donated the building to the community garden, and they’re going to turn it into a kind of cafe/bakery/grocery/community center, where they’ll have cooking classes and educational seminars in addition to serving food and selling produce and groceries. Monday night was the initial fundraiser to get this started, a farm-to-table throwdown. Area farmers donated ingredients, then some of the top chefs in the area had to create dishes using these ingredients. Three did appetizers, three did entrees, and three did desserts. A panel of judges evaluated the dishes and picked winners. The tickets for the dinner sold out almost instantly (and they were expensive). Since I’m in favor of having a restaurant a block away (since there’s no chair lift, so I have to walk down the street and back down the next street), I volunteered for the event.

They had an interesting setup for carrying out each flight of dishes. There were these thin boards that they piped dots of icing onto. The servers would pick up a board and go to each station in the kitchen, where someone would press a small plate onto the icing (so the plates wouldn’t slide). Then we’d carry the board out and set it in front of a diner, then hurry back to get another one. We had about 30 servers doing this, most of them high school students but a few adults. I pretty much spent the evening running laps. We’d go until everyone was served, get a brief break, during which we got to eat any food the chefs had left, then we’d run bring in the boards (which went faster than serving because we could stack them), and then it was time for the next course. In between courses, the chefs went out and described their dishes.

It was a lot of work and my feet and knees were mad at me by the end of the evening, but it was a lot of fun. I knew a number of the volunteers, either from other events in town or from running into them and chatting at the garden market. My next-door and across-the-street neighbors were there as diners, and one of my neighbors was doing logistics and hauling things in his truck. The guy two doors down was part of one chef’s team, and one of the pastry chefs has his bakery in the neighborhood. It was nice seeing everyone come together. One of the entree chefs was running behind getting her dish plated, and one of the pastry chefs pitched in to help. There were teenagers from the volunteer group getting drafted to help the chefs (I think the organizers knew them and knew they were interested in restaurant work). I met a lot of interesting people. One of the women I was working with turned out to have lived in the same general area of Germany I did when her husband was stationed there (he worked at the hospital where I went to the doctor when we lived there).

I mostly didn’t get to try the full dishes as they were plated, so I couldn’t really judge anything other than the desserts, where I did get a full plate of all three (another volunteer and I split it, but we got all the sauces and toppings the way it was plated for the dinner). My favorite was a goat cheese cheesecake. It wasn’t too sweet and had just a bit of tang.

The event was in the high school cafeteria (with lots of decoration to make it look like a restaurant), and during the down time between training and the event, I explored a little. I peeked into the auditorium and saw that the drama club was rehearsing a stage production of Hogfather, based on the Terry Pratchett novel. I’ll have to go see that. Based on the bit of rehearsal I saw, I think they’re having fun with it.

I enjoy being around people like that and feel energized while I’m doing it, but it also drains my batteries quickly, and I need solitude to recharge. I was only partially recharged from the retreat before I had to go into public mode again at the dinner, but I have a few days of quiet before next weekend’s fun kicks in. I’ve got a couple of hikes on the agenda, but there’s also a big local festival. I didn’t sign up to volunteer for the festival this year, so I may just pop by, depending on how tired I am after the hiking.

Remember that Pottery & Peril comes out tomorrow! I hope you enjoy it.