Opinion
Alexandria's community culinary organizer
By: Jeff Dufour
Editor at Large/Columnist, "Yeas & Nays"
11/07/08 12:05 AM EST
'Loaves and fishes'When does cooking for two qualify you to cook for 500-plus? When you're a campaign volunteer.
Just ask Nancy Rowe, who had been volunteering for the Obama campaign in Alexandria since June. In addition to making phone calls and doing "whatever is needed," the retired Arlington County teacher and principal took in two other volunteers from out-of-town, whom she regularly fed. "It became apparent that they were happy with the food I was making," she said.
So much so that, to her surprise, local campaign officials asked her last weekend if she could make enough food for 500 people on Election Day. To make things worse, she said they initially said they had a budget for the food, but then 36 hours later, said budget disappeared.
Despite her trepidation, she thought, "People were working 16-hour days; how can you say no?"
So in addition to cooking for three straight days herself, she enlisted the help of friends, neighbors, yoga classmates, even local eateries such as Buzz Bakery, Rocklands Barbecue and Bittersweet Catering. "We called in every chit we ever had in the city," she said.
Her only request from the pizza-addled staffers: Make it healthy! So Rowe and her team came up with vegetable soup, beef stew, pasta salad, chicken and dumplings, even breakfast that they began carting in at 4 a.m. "We ended up sending out boxes of food to the precincts," she said. "We didn't think we could possibly do it, but it turned into one of those loaves and fishes things."
