Weekend Update

I know it's Tuesday, but I had a few pics from the weekend worth posting. That and the blog was starting to accumulate dust-- the new job has me busy and finding free time (or at least free time when I don't want to be asleep or simply lazing about) is hard as of late.

This was my fuel for the weekend. We catered a local prom on Friday at The Omni and put out around 400 plates of lasagna. First of all, who wants lasagna at prom? It seems like a potential mess waiting to happen, but maybe that's just me. Second, when your favorite food is lasagna the last thing you want is to only be able to stare at it and plate it up a few hundred times. After about five minutes of that you want to gorge on every last scrap of noodle you see, trust me.

So, no surprise, after work I was off to GEagle to get ingredients to satisfy my lasagna fix.

Anyway, I know I've posted a pic of homemade lasagna on here before (what can I say, when I do cook at home I cook food I crave). This go-around I went with a sweet Italian sausage instead of ground beef, and I used fresh mozzarella instead of shredded or sliced processed versions. I'd say the changes made a difference --great ingredients usually do-- and overall I enjoyed this pan start to finish between Friday and today.

I just snapped this pic on the way to work on Sunday. You have to love Pittsburgh in the spring! I mean just look at that beautiful downtown skyline!

Anyway, Sunday was different for a lot of reasons at The Omni. We didn't cook out of the usual kitchen on the lower floor for starters. Instead we packed up all the food we would be using for the day and made a few trips tightly crammed into service elevators to a kitchen on the 17th floor.

The reason for the change of location was that the banquet we were putting food out for happened to be Kosher. This meant using tools and pans that were caged away in the 17th floor kitchen that have only been used in the past for these Kosher events. The few pans we used that had seen pork, shellfish or a dairy product in their lifetime had to be covered in Saran wrap.

(Note-- this was somewhat super annoying because we were not allowed to use our personal knives. The "Kosher" knives were just terrible-- just duller than dull. Try butterflying a chicken breast sometime with a dull knife...ugh).

Also interesting was that the Rabbi in the kitchen for the event had to check our preparation and cleaning of any vegetables used in the meal (bugs are also off the menu on Kosher menus...but I think that one is pretty universal), and he also had to turn on all the ovens, burners, steamers, etc. I don't quite know why, to be honest, but I just know it had to be done.

Let me now make note of one of the greatest things I have ever seen-- a Rabbi...with a flamethrower.

Let's just let that sink in for another second.

Yes, I have seen it-- a Rabbi with a flamethrower. Since it's probably impossible for The Omni to reserve a huge collection of serving vessels and tools just for Kosher events, items that had seen non-Kosher food items in their day were...well...cleansed? And by cleansed I mean the Rabbi walked around with a propane tank attached to a line which was attached to a nozzle. When he fired that bad boy up a nice foot or so of flame would shoot out and "purify" whatever needed a Kosher do over.

A Rabbi with a flamethrower...never thought I'd see that in this lifetime.

One other nice note about the 17th floor kitchen was the view. The kitchen downstairs is windowless, so when you are able to look up after plating almost 400 salads and see this:

Score.

There's still time to vote in the NAME THE MASCOT CONTEST. The poll is still located to the right, and there's still time to make your voice heard!