On the Third Day...

After a great show in Quincy, MA last night  Matt (tour cook, not me) and the gang laid out a nice snack spread of leftovers and other assorted goodies. I was so tired that I was not to much help. I hit the sack as soon as we pulled out and slept through to the morning. I woke up about 6:00 AM a bit groggy but got going pretty fast. Jay and Dave Marden were up and doing breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage and all the usual breakfast items.

Lunch was split again but to add some spice, it was remote. We needed to cart the lunch over to the stadium where the corps was rehearsing. The lunch was cadet-style grilled cheese which means we butter the bread with mayonnaise. Now this is the way my family has always done it, but many people find it strange. We setup a bit of a line to assemble the bread, cheese and mayo. Tessa, Alice, Elaine and I were able to get the 400 sandwiches made in about an hour and a half. After we got the first large pan finished Matt, Dave and Jay grilled them up and put them in hotel pans and into the cambro for transport. The rest of the lunch was packed and shuttled over to the corps.

After lunch departed we started on dinner. We planned dirty rice since we had lots of onions, peppers, celery, ground beef and rice. Alice and I started by chopping peppers and onions then I did the celery. I cooked the vegetables on the flattop. We saved off some of the vegetables to cook without animal fat so we could serve a vegan version of the dish. While I had a quick shower and shave, Matt browned the ground beef. Then time was getting tight so I started to cook the rice. I used the oven method to cook the rice. We decided to cook about 32 pounds of rice so we would be sure to have enough. While the rice cooked we portioned out the meat and vegetables into 8 foil lined hotel pans and added the creole spice mix that Alice had made up earlier in the day. Once the rice was done, we added a good amount to each pan, added a bit more chicken broth, mixed it all up and and covered them with foil and put them back in the oven for a bit.

We served the dinner with corn and salad. Lots of members, volunteers, and staff said they enjoyed the meal, so I think the team had another success. I saved some of the rice I made to give to our Asian members, they miss their rice so much that I thought a little treat of plain rice might be well received.

We are off to see the show and since we are doing snack back at the housing, we have the rare treat of having nothing to do at the show.

Here are some shots.

Cooking the Holy Trinity - Carrots, Onion and Celery

Member Shun Sasaki enjoying Dirty Rice and some plain rice I made special for our Asian members

Day Two

Near Boston at Burlington High School. We arrived here from NJ this morning. We had one rest stop on the way in New York, the trip was uneventful and I was able to get enough sleep. I am sure I will sleep well tonight, however.

Breakfast was easy, just put out donuts, coffee, pop tarts and other baked goods with the usual cereal, yogurt and stuff.

Lunch was what we call "split", which means that the brass would be fed at 12:45 and the guard and percussion at 2:00. Since it was in a single location, it is pretty easy to do. We served hot dogs and home made Mac and Cheese along with chips and apples. I made the Mac and Cheese from the ziti I cooked and chilled yesterday. I looked up a general recipe and went from there. Butter and flour for a roux, water and milk, a truly awesome amount of cheddar cheese, a couple of pounds of Parmesan, dry mustard, a touch of garlic powder and a block of Velveeta we had left and we had a large pot of cheese sauce. We made 8 pans and they ate 7, so I think they liked it.

Tonight is meatballs and spaghetti with salad and green beans plus some chocolate sheet cakes. Here are some photos:

The spaghetti and meatballs

Alice serving the chocolate cake

Yesterday they had a repairman come to fix the valve that got broken on the flat top. He told us that the back splash we had was causing many problems and told us to either remove it or cut holes in it to let the heat flow properly. This has been done so the unit should work much better. I am hoping that we will be able to do some blackened chicken sandwiches. I think the corps will love them. Here is the recipe

We are now getting ready to head to the show in Quincy. 

Matt

First Day

I arrived at the Trenton Train station all safe and sound. I was picked up by an old Cadet friend, Chris Demas. There was another Cadet at the train station too so the three of us headed to the housing site.

When I arrived I saw many old friends and met some new ones. The best part of joining the tour is getting to see all these great people, members, staff and volunteers.

I found my son, Liam, got a hug and handed off to him his new shoes and air mattress.

Today was a bit of a special dinner because a great supporter of the cadets, Greg Pych, was bringing it in. He brought country ribs, corn, baked beans and a wonderful salad of mixed greens, grapes, strawberries and a neat mixture of three dressings. Greg prepared the ribs with a rub in the oven then finished them off on the grill with barbeque sauce. We did our special "cooler corn" and it came out great as usual. A very successful meal and the members were well pleased with it. Here are some shots of the food:

Country Ribs

Mixed Salad

Corn on the Cob cooked in a Cooler

Liam showing off his meal

At the Train Station

The station in Norfolk is packed! This is very good news for our new little station.

Get the Tour Calendar

This is kind of a how-to blog post, but since we all like to know where the tour is at any given moment, here is the link to the tour calendar:

http://www.yea.org/site/PageServer?pagename=cadets_tour

Here is the cool part, if you are a Google Calendar user you can add this calendar to be shown on your calendar. All you have to do is click the little button on the bottom of the calendar:

This will add the "The Cadets Tour" calendar to your Google Calendar display. The best part is this is not a copy of the tour calendar, but a link. When the calendar is updated by The Cadets, the entries on your calendar are updated automatically.

If you have an Android phone, this new calendar should appear on your phone in a short time, if you do not see it after waiting a while, go to your calendar display and use the setting "Calendars to Display" and  make sure that the calendar named "The Cadets Tour" is selected to be displayed. Also make sure that in the list of "Calendars to Sync" that the calendar is checked as well.

-Matt

Joining Tour 2013 in New Jersey

Hey All,

I will be joining The Cadets again on Tour starting this Friday. I will meet up with them after a very early train ride from Norfolk, VA. I will be with them from the 28th until the 6th.

I hope to post at least once a day this year, we will see how busy it gets.

-Matt