The beloved dinner season keeps rolling on. In a couple of weeks, most of the church dinner option will be exhausted, and Thanksgiving will be here with the biggest meal of all.
I will miss the Yale United Methodist Church Dinner that used to be held this time of year. I think that this is the third year since they stopped serving it because no help was found.
Last Thursday offered a unique opportunity again in the city of Boone, which was originally named Montana.
This time it was the Boone Area Humane Society serving a soup dinner to raise funds for their organization. It was held in the First United Methodist Church in Boone, a beautiful old church with many modern updates.
Dan and I got started after 5:30 p.m. He had to be back in Perry by 6:45 p.m. to watch his grandkids, and we also had a United Methodist Men meeting to discuss our upcoming chicken and noodle dinner.
I drove and pushed the limit to get to the church, putting the lives of countless deer at risk. We were slowed down because downtown Boone was filled with trick-or-treaters, so the streets were blocked. We finally got to the church, breathless and nearly fainting with hunger.
The dinner was held in the basement, a very large place and well adapted to such dinners. This dinner must have brought in more than 300 people.
The choices were chili and vegetable beef soup and a dessert. They ran out of corn bread, so we got two desserts.
The vegetable soup was good but different. It reminded me of sweet pickles. The chili was good. Dan and I hurriedly ate and left. I took my pictures on the run.
We did not make it back until after 6:45 p.m., but Dan ended up not having to watch his grandkids. We did have our meeting, and the Perry First United Methodist Men chicken and noodle dinner will most likely be held in January. We have to see if our supplier of the noodles is healed up enough to make them.
Then came Saturday. There were two competing chicken and noodle dinners. The De Soto United Methodist Church and the Minburn United Methodist Church. After much deliberation during the week, we decided to hit both dinners. You only live once, so why not eat twice! The goal was not to make gluttons of ourselves at the first dinner.
We headed to the De Soto United Methodist Church dinner around 11:15 a.m. This is a small, older church with a narrow staircase in the basement. You never know what you will find at the end of the narrow staircase. Joyfully, we found chicken and noodles.
We discovered a very nice serving and dining area. They served chicken and noodles with mashed potatoes and green beans, a roll and a dessert. There were a lot of people attending this dinner, and the seating was a bit crowded. The food was great! I took my dessert with me to save room for Minburn. Dan ate his.
I went upstairs and waited quite some time for Dan. I do not know whether he went back for seconds or was scouting out other area dinners.
We drove to the Minburn United Methodist Church. They host several dinners every year in their basement, which is a great set-up.
One of the servers wanted to know if I wanted them to pile it on. I said she had better not give too much because I had just came from the dinner in De Soto. One of the other servers was shocked that we would attend two dinners held during the same day.
I think the servers were mad that I was seeing another church dinner behind their back like the faithless Israelites who worshipped a golden calf. I said that each chicken and noodle dinner has its own unique qualities.
Minburn was delicious as always. Again I had to take my pie with me. I ran out of room. Dan ate everything, including the second pie. Chicken and noodles, mashed potatoes, corn, hot dinner rolls and a choice of desserts filled our plates and our breadbaskets.
We headed out, thankful that there was not another dinner that night.
This weekend offers a challenge with the Bouton Breakfast in the morning, the Trinity Lutheran Church of Boone’s beef and noodle dinner at noon and the Woodward Christian Church’s hamball dinner for supper. Eating for so many worthy causes is hard work, but yum, yum.
