This weekend I took Sarah to start her volunteer work that she needs for High school. By senior year, she needs 50 hours of volunteer work. Since we have not done any yet, I took her this weekend for three volunteer events.

1)      We started at Asian Youth Services on Saturday morning. We got there around 9am and Sarah cleaned the center and arranged the books for 2 hours. We got to see some of the kids that come to the center but we had to leave at 11am.

2)      We left the center and arrived in Lincoln Park (Chicago) just before noon at the Lincoln Park Community Center where we met up with a group from a Korean church. Sarah and I cooked dinner lunch with them. Lunch was stuffed chicken breasts, mixed vegetables, mashed potatoes and lemon bars. I love doing this because I learn a little more about cooking each time.

3)      In the evening, I had Sarah volunteer at a pumpkin farm close to us. Sarah and three of her friends did face painting for the kids that came to the farm. For two hours, they painted faces of the kids and they really had a good time.

That brings me to “Cooking with Rich”. Tonight I made garlic mashed potatoes. You take a few pounds of red potatoes, cut them up and cook them. While they are cooking, you take two bulbs of garlic and put them in half and cook them in olive oil in the oven until soft. You mix the garlic, a butter and cream mixture you cook on the stove and the potatoes in a mixer until well mixed. Yum! They turned out so good! For the vegetables, you prepare two large onions, four large carrots, two large zucchini, and about one pound of green beans. You cook them in olive oil with chopped up garlic until soft. Yum! (Again). Hehe. It was so good and Sarah loved them.

Yep, it was a good night of cooking with Rich. Oh, and a little wine while cooking is always a good thing.

This past Saturday I helped out at Chicago’s 4^th annual Windy City Wine Festival. This was my 10^th volunteer event with onebrick.org. The event was held right next to Millennium Park in a place called Daily Bicentennial plaza. It was very crowded that day with lots of other events going on in the city – I found a parking space in the underground parking nearby. I arrived a few minutes early and met up with my group. I signed in and got a free t-shirt that would identify us as volunteers helping out. I was assigned to the Beer and Wine tent. I worked with one employee there and another volunteer. I sold beer, which really fun that evening. Most of the people there used the tickets they purchased to sample wine from different vendors. There were 2 beer tents for those that wanted to enjoy a cold beer. The first 2 hours were pretty slow but it really picked up around 5pm. We had to stay until 6pm and at that time; we met as a group to get our wine tickets. The lines were pretty long, so I went back to help more in the beer tent and worked until 8:30. It was a lot of fun and had a few people who kept coming back for another beer. Since I was off duty at that time, I got to enjoy one myself. Since I was close to the main stage, I got to hear a talk about French wine, then a band played, then a few cooking demonstrations. When I was leaving, I walked by the band shell and the place was packed. I could hear opera being sung. The weather was perfect and it was so cool being right there in that part of the city.

Windy City Wine Festival Home Page