Green Bean Soup, Salsa and Maple Syrup...

Forry dropped me off at Diane's house (2.5 miles from Auntie Violet) a little after noon today and she, her sister-in-law Fran and I headed for Moses Lake. We dropped Fran off downtown to do some shopping and Diane and I tried to find the Health Department. Diane is in charge of all the food sales and meals at the Mennonite Country Auction and she had discovered that her food handler card expired yesterday (and mine expired sometime last winter). I was planning to spend the afternoon over at the church helping her and when she said she needed to take the test to get her card, I decided to go along and get mine too.

After doing some asking around we finally found the office (only the phone number is listed in the phone book) in time to review the latest food booklet before it was time to watch their videos and then take the test. It's a good thing we looked at the newer book. I had been quizzing Diane from her older book on the way to town, but they've changed a few things! For example, food must now be cooled to 41 degrees instead of 45 degrees like in the old book and food cannot be more than 2 inches deep in cooling pans instead of 4 inches... But we both aced the test, so one more thing out of the way.

When we got back to the church, Fran and I started putting maple syrup samples in 1 oz little cups with lids while Diane and Didi started putting together six roasters of ingredients for Green Bean Soup. Then Fran and I filled some larger cups with salsa for the taco salads. All of this stuff then goes into the cooler until Saturday.

Diane had invited Forry and I to her house for dinner after we finished at the church. Her brother Jim from Kansas (who is one of the auctioneers) and his wife Fran are staying with them, so we had a good visit with dinner. Diane had put craw fish etoufee' and rice in the oven before we left for Moses Lake, so we had quite a feast!