Every Thursday morning around 9:30 or so, someone walks into the Fellowship Hall at the island’s Second Baptist Church, flips on the lights and starts cooking for a group of 45 to 60 people, varying seasonally, who begin to show up two hours later. This has been happening for three years now, with only a few interruptions — once a new floor was being laid; Vacation Bible School occupies the room for a week in August; one day there was a blizzard. The church Mission Committee calls it Mission Lunch; everyone else just calls it good.
The cooks sometimes work independently; some volunteer in teams. Their experience varies from being expert private cooks for summer residents, bed and breakfast owners, caterers both current and ex, restaurant chefs — to home cooks brave enough to cook large quantities. Those who come to eat are people who live alone, often older folks, looking for a bit of company over a home cooked meal. More meals are put together, called “go-outs” destined for the reclusive, or for the ill or elderly and those who are caring for them. Often when someone comes home from the hospital they find themselves on the list of folks who will have a lunch delivered until they feel stronger. Helpers get lunch, too, as do the set-up people, the clean-up people, and the drivers who deliver the go-outs.
Lunch can be chowder, lasagna or good old ham and baked beans. One cook made a brunch style lunch with breakfast food. Chicken, turkey, beef and pork all have their day. Chili, soup, and shepherd’s pie followed by apple crisp, pie, cake or ice cream with strawberries left over from the annual church strawberry festival. Extra vegetables from home gardens are donated in summer. Some of the cooks spring for the meal they prepare. At the end of the season, summer people leaving for home, and even the Golf Club restaurant, turn over unused ingredients. Once we had for our dessert two-thirds of a Baked Alaska from the club. Thanksgiving Dinner leftovers, extras from other public suppers, and all sorts of miscellany find their way into the Mission Lunch freezer to be incorporated into a meal.
Then there is music. For the first year or so piano players, singers, even youthful stand-up comedians, offered entertainment, but over time, some combination of musicians in Islesboro’s own Charlie Pendleton Band has taken it upon themselves to show up weekly to play. Charlie himself with his accordion, accompanied by John Mitchell’s banjo, Stan Pendleton’s guitar, Bonnie Hughes’s clarinet, Ruth Hartley on the piano, Fern Fairfield’s sax, Jack Coffin on the trumpet, and Donny Pendleton on the drums. It seems nearly everyone can play at least a couple of different instruments. During school vacation weeks, the music teacher John Oldham comes, and our rural carrier Mike McFarland tears through his route as fast as he can on Thursday to join in with his bass or guitar. Lydia Rolerson and Eileen Boardman dance.
Jess Oldham is always there, except sometimes in summer when she is out mowing yards, keeping track in a notebook how many meals we serve, who the “go-outs” are, setting up the delivery routes. Alice Girven found the cooks during the past three years, and Wendy Hammet will take over now, though as a perennial morning helper she has been on hand steadily over the years, too. Alice or Jess make sure birthdays are remembered and that the sick get a get-well card signed by all present.
Lunch is served on china plates, coffee in mugs, and water in glasses. We set the table with pickles in dishes, and butter on plates. The dishwashing crew is often numerous, patient, and glad we have a big commercial washer. The kitchen and hall are cheerful, noisy and convivial.
There is a loaves-and-fishes aspect to it all. In one year, we have fed a little more than a couple of thousand meals, each for the price of a postage stamp plus the deposits from three returnable soda cans. Where else could the leftover frozen hamburgers from the Friends of the Library’s booth at Old Home Day join up with a leftover meatloaf from a previous lunch, topped with the extra mashed potatoes from a turkey dinner, and come out a shepherd’s pie for fifty and taste good, too?
Sandy Oliver cooks and writes on Islesboro.