{"id":289,"date":"2008-03-10T07:26:43","date_gmt":"2008-03-10T14:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greenhopeessences.com\/wordpress\/?p=289"},"modified":"2008-03-10T07:30:14","modified_gmt":"2008-03-10T14:30:14","slug":"march-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.greenhopeessences.com\/?p=289","title":{"rendered":"March Madness"},"content":{"rendered":"

I disagree with T S Eliot. April is not the cruelest month. <\/p>\n

At least in April you believe<\/em> in spring, even if you know it will be cruel. In March, you believe only in March.<\/p>\n

So, when the March weather turned predictably ugly again, we did what everyone in public education in America does. We spent the weekend fund raising.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, it was a big fund raising dinner and auction for William’s seventh grade. They are trying to raise enough money to take a field trip to Montreal. This has involved selling wrapping paper, popcorn, and magazines door to door, selling soup and sandwiches at town meetings, selling candy at basketball games as well as selling babysitting services at any event where there are children in need of entertainment.<\/p>\n

Frankly, William’s seventh grade class has more business experience than I had by the time I was twenty<\/span> thirty<\/span>, forty<\/span>, fifty.<\/p>\n

Will, Jim, and I were on macaroni and cheese duty for yesterday’s dinner. Along with some thirteen year old business moguls, we made four cheese Macaroni and Cheese for the 270 people who attended the dinner.<\/p>\n

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\nHere the moguls prepared to grate the cheddar. Getting a chance to wield a big knife in the kitchen is very motivating. <\/p>\n

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\nA victory celebration was held as the last of the 15 pounds of cheddar was grated.<\/p>\n

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\n10 pounds crumbled gorgonzola, 10 pounds grated parmesan, and fifteen pounds grated mozzarella at the ready.<\/p>\n

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\nWith six gallons of milk we made a lot of cream sauce.<\/p>\n

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\nThen added the gorgonzola.<\/p>\n

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\nThen the cheddar and mozzarella. <\/p>\n

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\nWe added three enormous trays of 30 pounds of cooked rigatoni.<\/p>\n

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Will did the final mixing before its was put in pans, topped with the parmesan and popped in the ovens.
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Many hands made light work.<\/p>\n

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So some of the crew moved on to the ham part of the dinner preparation. Liz Taylor, who worked here at the farm for many years, now owns her family’s smokehouse. They provided the five hams for last night’s dinner. Liz had the kids pour maple syrup on the hams, also provided by Liz’s family who has a sugarhouse as well.
\n\"100_5782.JPG\"<\/p>\n

<\/span>A nod to the vegetable kingdom was made with the salads.<\/p>\n

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With the macaroni and cheese in the oven and only a few needed for the hams and salads, the remainder of the crew was conscripted to cut brownies into 270 equal size pieces. Jim does the math to figure out how.<\/p>\n

In the whirlwind that followed as we served the meal, my picture taking fell to the wayside, but I did get one photo of one happy customer, Will’s cousin Caroline.
\n\"100_5792.JPG\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I disagree with T S Eliot. April is not the cruelest month. At least in April you believe in spring, even if you know it will be cruel. In March, you believe only in March. So, when the March weather turned predictably ugly again, we did what everyone in public education in America does. We … Continue reading March Madness<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.greenhopeessences.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.greenhopeessences.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.greenhopeessences.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.greenhopeessences.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.greenhopeessences.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.greenhopeessences.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.greenhopeessences.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.greenhopeessences.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.greenhopeessences.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}