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.

Grinnell United Methodist Church Dinner Ragbrai

Ragbrai 2011 - Thursday Night

Grinnell United Methodist Church Dinner

Grinnell, Iowa

Chicken and Noodle with Mash Potatoes

This was the church’s 3rd time serving a church dinner for Ragbrai. They were prepared to serve 600-700 riders. There were two dozen people in line at 3:30pm and the dinner started at 4pm. By 5:45 they had already sold 350 tickets. At a certain point of the night they were letting guests know there was the potential of being able to serve more, but they would have to let the already paid guests in first. At about 7:45 pm they sold their last ticket serving 760 plates of food.

Guests were sold tickets and could sit in a very comfortable church sanctuary listening to live Dixie Land music. Numbers were put on the board once a table in the dinning room opened up. 112 guests could be seated at one time in their dinning area. Once the guest’s number showed up on the board they would enter the pie line. Yes, why not pick your piece of pie first. The best part of the dinner… A great selection of 11 different types of desserts. Peach, Raspberry, Apple, Rhubarb, strawberry Rhubarb, Blue Berry, Pecan & Pumpkin Pies, Brownies, Cheese Cake, and Almond Bars. The first pies they ran out of was the Pumpkin and Pecan pie. At the end of the night they had leftover pies that they sold for $2 a slice.

Pastor Len Eberhart stated that their chicken noodle dish was perfected by church members who have done Ragbrai rides before and know what is important to riders. They had a very well thought out system from their 3rd time serving Ragbrai and other big dinners. You could feel the love in so many details. The dinning room had big round tables with a chicken themed center piece. The tables gave you a relaxing area to share with others at your table. It was truly wonderful to open their church sanctuary for the riders to come in and sit and relax, in a air-conditioned area listing to music after a long, hard day riding a bike. Other wonderful hospitality was refilling your glass with water or iced tea often. After a long hot day you need to make sure you are replenishing yourself.

Stop to talk to guest to ask them why they pick this church dinner then the other 3 church dinner being held that night. The top to answers people stated on how they pick a church dinner is location and menu. After a long hard ride most don’t want to walk many blocks to find a place to eat. But some did state if it is for the right type of dinner they will get there. One group happened to have a car so distance didn’t matter, they were just look for the steeples. What was nice about this church was the bells were ring helping you find its location. Some many of the guest stated they didn’t want spaghetti or lasagna and this was what they want to eat.

A special delight was the murals on the wall of the dinning room, the conference room and in the hallway created by Tom Moberg, T.J Moberg and Joe Sciorrotta. The mural in the conference room which is in color depicts the Highway 6 close to Grinnell. You can see two cars on the road. The first electric car was made in Des Moines, Iowa by William Morrison 1890-1891. Not sure if this is one of the cars Morrison invented but Pastor Eberhart stated this was one of the type of car that could be see around here. The dinning mural depicts parts from the bible blending from one scene to another. You can find a bible in a rock, Garden of Eden, the 10 Commandments, and a frog. They were happy to explain and handout more info about this beautiful artwork.