Keeping donated food warm at Relay For Life

[perc-o-prince]

Hey all,

As you know, I volunteer for a local American Cancer Society Relay For Life and am the event chair again this year (Natick, Framingham, Sherborn MA). We have a Survivor/Caregiver luncheon after the opening ceremonies and I've gotten it donated from Olive Garden. The restaurant is only about 10 minutes away from the Relay site, bt we need to keep the food warm for 30-60 minutes once it's on site.

We have a small oven in the concession stand, but we're talking donated food for 200 people. It will be in chafing dish pans, the big ones that the water generally goes in. We have a large charcoal grill there, and I'm trying to think of some way we might be able to use that. H-m-m-m-m-m. Any thoughts? I'm hesitant to ask them to put it in smaller pans where they have their system, but barring any revelations, I may have to try that route. Anyone local have one of those tall rolling hotboxes we can plug in??? LOL!!!

I'm also including a link for Rich's fundraising page in case any of you are able to make a donation. Credit cards are accepted online, or you can email us privately to mail a check. Anything you can give would be appreciated!

Happy Monday,
Chuck

Thanks for the help,
Chuck

http://main.acsevents.org/goto/richcincotta

 

[petek]

Any chance of getting one of the local rent-all places to donate a few of their buffet servers,, the kind with the candles under them. Tell them it's for a good cause and someone will make a posterboard sign up with their name on it to hang behind the concession. That sorta thing.

 

[perc-o-prince]

Thanks for the thought!

Between what we have and what a few other volunteers have, we don't have to go to another source for those servers. But, the food would be directly over the flame (sterno) since it's in the big pans that usually hold the water bath for the smaller pans. If it were for just a few minutes while serving, not an issue of it burning to the bottom. But we may need to hold the food for almost an hour.

If we have no other choice, we may ask them to put the food in the smaller ones that fit over the water bath. We want to use that as a last resort, however.

Chuck

 

[westie2]

Chuck our Dollar tree have the warmers with the pan and yu cou;d get those and water in them then something to kinda hold the other pan up some that shold worl.  It is sterno or cdcles. 
You might get them donated from Dollar Tree.

 

Or Olive Garden might have the big roll around insulated cabnites to keep the food. warm.

 

Good luck

 

Charles

 

[whirlykenmore78]

Hot food transport boxes

You can rent them at most rental centers.
They are designd to hold the 1/2 and full size hotel pans bulk catered food is usually delivered to a site in. If this restaurant does catering regularly they may even have them. Sometimes they even come with dollies to roll the m around. Chafing dishes will hold the temp for a limited time during service. Be sure to use at least 2 fuel cells under each one. Remember whatever you do the food must be kept above 140F/60C at all times for hot perishables and below 40F/4C for cold. Good luck.
Nick WK78

 

[hunter]

why not make a hay box?

Not literally of course, but they were used in UK for cooking without fuel.

THe idea was bring a stew or beans or whatever to boil and cook for a bit, cover it tightly and put it in a box of hay. The hay insulated and kept it cooking.

Since it is only an hour, could you do something similar with newspaper lined coolers? Get the food absolutely HOT, put them in there, and let it sit?

I have no idea.

Also, some of the electric coolers can also heat to 140F as well - I have one that I use on long car trips (when the noise of its fan doesn't make me crazy) and it plugs into a 12V dc power point or a transformer.

Just a thought...

 

[perc-o-prince]

Thanks, all!

Funny, the back of the car picking up the food will be kind of transformed into a hay box with blankets and newspaper! There should be very little temp drop in the 10 or so minutes it takes to get the food to the site.

Yes, Charles, we do need to keep an eye on food safety, especially since there will be people who may still be in treatment or shortly out of treatment enjoying the food. We're hoping to keep it above 160 for most of the holding time, then in the chafers for serving (2 cans of sterno under each).

Nick- I'll have to check the local rental center to see what they have. They're not known for their charity (Taylor Rental), but we'll see!

I wonder if I give them regular Coleman coolers and they put the food straight from the oven into the coolers, that would do it. The volume of food should keep the temperature up, no?

Chuck

 

[tomturbomatic]

Doesn't anyone in the group have any Salton Hotrays? If you put the food on electric warmers, you could cover all it with a quilt or blanket and stuff would stay hot. Then, too, you could have the food delivered a bit later.

 

[perc-o-prince]

Um, maybe WE have some? And Corning ones too! Didn't think of that! Anyone see any glitches that may happen with those? We'll have electricity (20A, 110V) at the site where the food's gonna be. Plus, we seem to see more of the heated trays at the transfer station about every other week!

Delivering it later: we have to pick it up from OG and we want to be sure the people who are running for it have it back and all set keeping warm before opening ceremony starts at noon. Then the luncheon is right after opening ceremony, maybe 12:25-12:30.

Thanks!

Chuck

 

[xraytech]

Another thought you could do, and I've done so before,

take Coleman coolers and place a hotray on the bottom, stack pans of food on top and close lid, the heat of the food and the heat generated from the warming tray should be sufficient. I have also used vintage GE heating pads set on high on top and bottom of a cooler full of food to keep it warm(that is what I do when travelling with hot food in Corningware, place it on my heating pad in an insulated Thirty One tote close it and plug heating pad into power inverter)

 

[tomturbomatic]

So, has this happened? Did the food stay warm?