Fish-jello frenzy

...aka the annual Vang Lutefisk Dinner. That's right, the blessed event has come and gone, officially kicking off Lutefisk Dinner Season 'round these parts.

The good news is that I somehow managed to escape without having to eat any. The bad news is that I didn't get a chance to eat anything else, either!

I got there about 10:30 am, just in time to be trained for the 11:00 crowd (the 11:00, noon, and 1:00 seatings require reservations, then they serve continuously from 4:00 until 7:30). I was a server for the first two lunch crowds, got set up for the third, and realized we were running half an hour behind, so I had to go get ready to teach confirmation elsewhere.

Let me tell you, they run a tight ship at Vang! They have their system down and it works. Here is most of the dining area. There's another room out of sight. I'm sure they seat more than 150 at a time. There is a reason there were 44 servers listed on the sheet I got in the mail.





There are dinner rolls, cranberry sauce, coleslaw, coffee, and water on the tables when guests arrive. Everything else (lutefisk, meatballs, mashed potatoes, lefse, corn, fruit soup, and cookies) is brought to the tables by serving staff and served family-style. The servers get the food from different Sunday school rooms. Here you can see trays of fruit soup lined up and ready to go. Behind it are bowls ready to be filled with corn.





Here's the actual kitchen, center of mashed potato distribution and dish-washing...not to be confused with dish-scraping, which was done at another station. I'm telling you, this was a precise operation.





And, of course, we have the main attraction. It was prepared in a creepy back room off the kitchen that probably exists solely for this once-annual function. There were a whole crew of people tending to the lutefisk preparation, and here you see the near-final step: transferring it from the baking dishes to the serving trays. I can testify that it is an art form to carry a tray of this slippery stuff without it sliding right off the edge. By all appearances, the jello comparison is not exaggerated.





All in all, it was a fabulous day! This dinner is a huge fundraiser for Vang Lutheran Church and it is clearly an institution in this area. It was a delight to be a small part of it!

Now I've enjoyed fall events at Hegre, First, and Vang, and I still have several others to look forward to...the Gol Harvest Luncheon this Sunday, the Holden All Saints Dinner (which, sadly, I have to miss), and the Grace Fall Bazaar. And probably others I don't know about yet. Good times ahead!