Kelly’s Unnecessary Blog

I just got back from a meet, greet, and get informed session about volunteering at Kitchen in the Market, the commercial kitchen space within the Midtown Global Market. If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time you know I love to cook, and while I don’t have any delusions that I’ll suddenly become a chef or anything remotely close, I thought this opportunity to be support staff for cooking class events (both public and private) would be an interesting something different to do.

It was billed as an information session to enlighten us as to what they look for in volunteers and what we as volunteers might expect. It turned out to be a little mini-class in its own right.

As soon as we arrived at the space, we were offered KITM’s “signature” champagne cocktail—glass drizzled with liquor, champagne poured, a few drops of bitters—after showing proper ID—”I don’t care if you look 112 or 12”—before anybody even said a word (an informational word, that is). Champagne? Okay, this is already fun!

There was presented actual information for a few minutes before we broke into three groups to prepare snackens for immediate consumption.

I was in the vegetables dipped in vodka then dipped in flavored salt group. I chopped the radishes with, I have to say, surprisingly, a rather dull knife (ahem). White=sea salt, orange=spiced/hot salt, grey=smoked salt.

Another group prepared delicious guacamole, which also contained a bit of the smoke salt and smoke something else which I don’t remember what.

The final group prepared a pomegranate-quincekumquat salsa. Well, I didn’t hear its official name but that’s what I’m calling it. And I think those orange, citrusy but bitter slices are quince, right?

All accompanied by a glass of wine whilst we chit-chatted amongst ourselves and with the KITM folks.

Volunteer duties include patron interface, food prep assisting, wine carafe and glass filling, clean-up (dishes and mopping), and the like. You know, I’ll give it a whirl. It seems like something that could take me down some unexpected path that jolts the routine of my life, and that would be exciting.