Spaghetti Sunday and More

It was the 6th grader's spaghetti dinner yesterday afternoon. We heard mass at 12:30pm, then proceeded to the event. This is a traditional fundraiser put on by 6th graders to help fund their week-long science camp later in the year. This year's event was entitled, "A Dinner You'll Never Spaghett..."

This has always been a fun event. People chose to dine-in in one of two seatings, 1:30 and 3:00 on a  Sunday afternoon. They could also order to-go, which was available on Saturday after the 5:30pm mass, and all Sunday as well.

As hosts, 6th graders served their guests, while their parents ran around and did other chores, like selling tickets, manning the kitchen, pouring the wine, and almost everything else that's needed for a successful event. In between servings, the kids also performed classic, Italian-inspired songs to the delight of their guests. Aside from serving spaghetti, there were raffles and a silent auction.

On the menu was, obviously, spaghetti. It came with a choice of marinara sauce, with meatballs, or plain pasta with butter or olive oil. Grated parmesan cheese was also available, upon request. On the side were ceasar salad and garlic bread. The main course was complimented with a drink of iced tea, lemonade, or water. Wine was available, too, for $3, if you wanted one. For dessert, there was a choice of vanilla or chocolate ice cream, a chocolate-dipped cookie, and surprisingly strong coffee.

We've been attending this annual dinner for the last 4-5 years. And each year, the recipe was different. Each class had their own secret recipe, and it ran the gamut from the soupy to the ultra thick, and from the bland to the richly flavorful. Not that I am biased, but I think our recipe was one of the best I've tried, and probably one of the most successful, in terms of generating the necessary funds.

It was another fun day, but it was cut short because we had to run to our son's piano recital at the nearby Dominican Mother house up the hill, right next to St. Joe.

Being a Sunday, and the last batch of performers, the recital was short. Probably the shortest I've heard been to. There were about 10 kids who performed. If you blinked, you would have missed it. After the recital, I wished we could have gone back to the spaghetti dinner and continued with the merriment. But that meant we had to pay again. So we decided to go home, and take a nap.