Trinity Lutheran Church Ragbrai

Church dinner

at

Trinity Lutheran Church

Boone, Iowa

Taste of Iowa Dinner

Planned to serve 700 meals

250 Pork Chops

250 Chicken Breasts

100 Beef Kabobs

75 Vegetable Kabobs

100 Beef Noodle

66 dozen ears of Peaches & Cream style Corn

120 pies from a local orchard

The Taste of Iowa was organized by Vicki who wanted rider to get a taste of Iowa. From the three types of local meat to the local corn called Peaches & Cream. The number one experience they wanted riders to have was Pork of course. It was also very helpful

that some of the volunters were in the pork business and donated the grill to be used for the dinner. Kevin Westrum, one of these members, stated they got about 15 pork chops per side and 30 pork chops total from one pig. They had 250 pork chops and if you do the math, it’s 9 pigs. Gets you think with all the pork chops eaten on Ragbrai thought out the week, is there a sale on pork products because of the high demand.

Alice Westrum donated 120 pies for this dinner. 12 different types -Apple, peach, apricot, plum, blackberry, grape, gooseberry, current, raspberry, black raspberry, rhubarb, strawberry Rhubarb and Blueberry. Each pie had an imprint on the center on the pie stating what kind it was. A total of 720 pieces of pies. Alice lives about 8 miles north of Boone where almost all of the fruit came from her Orchard. The only thing she had to buy was blackberies do to losing those plants in her orchard. The pies that went first were the Current, Gooseberry and Strawberry Rhubarb. Current and Gooseberry are harder to find on Ragbrai so maybe this is why they went first. I had to try the Plum pie that reminded me of Rhubarb pie but much sweeter.

The corn was cooked in turkey friers, but instead of oil they used water. They used 6 friers at about 14 ears at a time for 10-12 minutes. A total of 66 dozen ears of corn was picked just the day before and they had a shucking party that day. By the end of the night they still had corn left over.

A lot of guests were groups of riders from all over the US. The longest distant guest for dinner was from Hawaii. Only a couple of families came to this dinner. They didn’t get as many guests as they hoped. Because of construction it was hard to get from the main area. But they did sell out of beef and noodle 2 hours into the dinner at 6pm. Vicki said they had a number of great comments and also handed out postcards for guests to send back to the church. She said they got a lot of comments like “this was the best I ever had on Ragbria”

The church goal was to treat the riders to a great meal and use the money to improve their church. Some of their improvements are for the school attached to the church, it needs to have the ceiling and flooring replaced. All the meat was cooked by 7:50 PM and there were still people walking in. They might have not sold all over their food items by the end of the night but they came very close to it. They even started selling whole pies for $10. It is always wonderful to see your money going to a good cause.