In case you were wondering why I was mostly absent from my blog yesterday, it’s because I spent the day at the fire station preparing for our annual Siuslaw Valley Firefighter Association’s St. Paddy’s Day Spaghetti Feed. And by “preparing for it,” I don’t mean stretching out my stomach and putting on pants with an elastic waist. I was cooking off 60 pounds of pasta and dicing up 30 pounds of tomatoes while Capt. Liz Iabichello cooked off 40 pounds of meat and diced 10 pounds of onions.
Today, we’ll finish the sauce, make garlic bread and prepare the salad for tonight’s fundraiser dinner, which is from 4 to 7 p.m. If any of you happen to be on the central Oregon coast tonight, stop in! We’re expecting about 300 people but I’m sure we can find you a table.
And we promise you’ll get your food faster than you would on Hell’s Kitchen.
In the meantime, I’ll be pretty scarce today too, on a rigorous schedule finishing my deadline here at Siuslaw News…
Then heading over to the fire station this afternoon…
And finishing some cooking…
So, if you happen to be in the neighborhood, come in for some great firehouse spaghetti prepared by Capt. Iabichello and myself…
…and served up by other vounteers of the Siuslaw Valley Firefighters Association.
Or you could go home to spaghetti with canned sauce like this…
We’ll return to our regularly scheduled posts tomorrow with The Door (of Shame, Blame and Brilliance.)
Until then, bone appetite!
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(Ned Hickson is a syndicated columnist with News Media Corporation. His first book, Humor at the Speed of Life, is available from Port Hole Publications, Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.)
Ned's Blog 
No picture — or better still, a video — of the dicing of 10 pounds of onions? How disappointing…
It’s was mostly a bunch of crying anyway…
I expected something like this: http://goo.gl/O8trgt
I wish I’d thought of that! After 10 years as a chef, onions don’t bother me. But poor Liz could’ve used an SCBA mask!
Great pics! Enjoy cooking, serving and eating. Hope your fundraiser does well.
Thanks so much! I’ll save you some garlic bread 😉
Now that’s using your noodle, Ned!! Happy St. Patrick’s Day!! 🙂
Wait… WHAT?!? Oh… spaghetti.
Bon appetit!
I know… I just like to see the looks on Canadian faces when I say that 😉
I cooked spaghetti and garlic bread (with cheese!) last night – along with a caesar salad. But it was for only three adults and two children. I couldn’t imagine making it for SO many people!! But it sounds like fun.
(And I think it’s awesome that your chief is a woman!)
Next year you should come here — we could use the help! And Caesar salad is one of my favorite things, so feel free to make that.
And yeah, she’s really great 😉
Sounds like a good plan!!
I would so stop by! I would also be too late. Good on you Ned! You are a stand up kinda guy!
Thanks Julie — maybe next year! It’s alwways March 17, so plan ahead 😉
Good luck with your fundraiser! 🙂
Thaks, Lynete — it’s always a lot of fun!
Oh, I wish I was in back in Oregon–I’d be there with bells on. Nothing I’d like better on Pretend You’re Irish Day than some spaghetti & meat sauce. I hope you sell out. Interestingly, the Del Grosso family (who filled that jar you’re holding) makes their sauce right down the road from me in Pennsylvania. I didn’t know they sold on the west coast. Sweet! They’re a great company, deeply invested in the regional community sponsoring fundraisers with the product and an their amusement park (they bought and saved and sustain a historic amusement park in tiny Tipton, PA) and other various philanthropic activities.
Wow! That is so great to hear! And I was making fun of their sauce… now I feel like a jerk. Maybe I’ll send them some pasta 😉 I’ll save a seat for you next year!
good luck to you and your fundraiser. i’m half irish and half italian so this is right up my alley, celebrating st. pat’s with pasta. my dad used to make his famous ‘irish spaghetti sauce,’ which was horrible jarred sauce with a bit of irish beer or whiskey poured in. it’s the thought that counts, not the taste so much in this case.
Thanks, Beth! I’d be willing to try your dad’s recipe. Just not on my pasta.
Nice event. Thanks for the invite but still watching the spring breakers and don’t dare close my eyes let alone leave.
I hear you. Spaghetti straps is probably better than actual spaghetti anyway.
Spaghetti? Instead of potatoes??? Oh, the humanity.
Good luck on the fundraiser. Do you deliver to Illinois?
Did you get the spaghetti I sent?
Yeah, it was really good! But the salad was pretty soggy.
Dang it! I told them not to cook the salad!
Good help is so hard to find.
Just missed the fundraiser; it’s 7:30pm. Hope it was a smashing success.
It went really well! Big tournout.
But we have leftovers. I sent you some; look for a box stained with maranara sauce.
Save me some pasta, Ned. And call me Penne Pastafarian.
Hahaha! I’ve got some set aside with your name on it, Penne 😉
a man using his noodle, good for you.
That means a lot coming from you 😉
I think after cooking so much spaghetti, I would not want to see it again for months, maybe even the next year.
HaHa! We actually had it for dinner last night!
Oh dear me.
I HATE spaghetti, but I love your work, Ned, so it all balances out….
I promise I’ll never ask you to write about spaghetti.
My dear Ned, you even inspire me in the kitchen.
I read your post yesterday and whipped up homemade meatballs paired with sauce using tomatoes from my garden. It was the most relaxing and therapeutic dinner I’ve cooked in a long time. THANK YOU!!! My family thanks you, too – they’ve been living on ramen noodles for about three weeks 😉
That sounds absolutely delicious, Michelle. And if I could grow anything but blackberry vines I would totally start a tomato garden. In a way, with you all having spaghetti, it was almost like havng your family here 😉
I thought the same thing – love family spaghetti dinners!