Day 4/8 - 25Dec - 114

Happy Christmas and thanks for reading this far.

This year we are cooking 114 turkeys in The Gate kitchen, a huge number because we are looking after the Warehouse team and some other Crisis centres.

I left four of the Afternoon team at midnight last night still in front of the ovens and returned at 3pm this afternoon to find them at their stations,  James said they finished at 02:30hrs Christmas morning!

We stood at whiteboards listening to Chef allocate out the tasks for today and everything seemed surprisingly calm and relaxed for a 7pm target serve time.

James was TurkeyMan, just 60 of them today, Sagar was RoastspudandvegMan and I was ParsnipMan.

I say it every year in my diary that if you ever cook a roast or BBQ poultry please invest in a digital thermometer probe to test the centre of the bird to avoid stomach upsets or trip to A&E.

I do the parnsnips every year because it involves a couple of hours in front of two large woks of very very hot oil balanced on the range.

It is a physical and hot so Chef lets me set up a station that everyone avoids once I start.

The Christmas Eve Night Shift had completerd all the veg prep saving us a lot of time, after coating ten trays of potato in semolina I had an hour to spare with Christina rearranging and stocktaking the larder.

As usual, we have a sizeable donation from Harrod's Foodhall who send us their fresh remainder stock at close on Christmas Eve.

This year our ranges and overns are in sight of the serving counter so I can watch our guests queuing up to collect a spectacular hot nutritious Christmas meal.

Many of our guests rejoin the queue two or three times for more meals, and we served them about 130 full Christmas dinners tonight.

Only once that had run its course could we call the volunteers, scattered around The Gate, from their gap, toilet, cinema, security, cafe, dormitory, entertainment or outdoors duties.

Over the next two and half hours they came in and enjoyed their Christmas dinner in the communal dining area, naturally we have a vegetarian and vegan option too and volunteers were still being served their Christmas meal beyond 10pm.

This year, unusually, a young guest joined us in the kitchen to work as our porter, just 19 years old, he had been working in a hotel for three months, they had held his passport, but then shutdown without paying him, he found himself broke and homeless in London without being able to get home for Christmas. We have paid for him to study and sit the various Food Certification online courses in our IT room this week so he can apply for catering jobs, we have given him an oystercard too and Crisis will support him once The Gate closes.

Happy Christmas..

My 2019 Justgiving fundraiser: link

Last year's Gate Diary 2018 - link

Regards, Paul
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NB: These diary entries are written as a thank-you to everyone who has donated to Crisis At Christmas, would still like to, or just curious to know what happens behind the scenes.

I write this diary to let you know how we spend your money and to encourage you to keep supporting Crisis At Christmas as it depends upon your donations or volunteering to fund the huge Christmas operation and subsequent year round services 

 https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/llct2019