My Math Skills Fail Me Again... but the Lefse Was Delicious

Last week I wanted to write... to complain.... to weep on the keyboard in exhaustion and panic. However, I just didn't have time. We had two nights of parent-teacher conferences this week.... Because of the timing of that my yearbook staff decided to host our big yearbook sales kick-off at school which included selling preorders during breaks and lunches all week ... making posters... scheduling students to work.... collecting prizes to be awarded daily.... Unfortunately, we also planned our big lefse fundraiser the weekend before Thanksgiving in order to draw in a lot of orders just in time for the holiday dinner. Sheesh. Everything converges. And I think I am lucky to have escaped without a huge crash.

My "hell week" ended with our final day of lefse production. Lefse production, alone, is time consuming at best and the pressure to find student workers, to collect order forms and money, to remember all the supplies and ingredients was a bit overwhelming. Truly, the event went off without a hitch and we made some decent money for our school's yearbook. But I did make a few small blunders that added up to more work than we anticipated. I'm not sure realizing it earlier would have changed things much, but so it goes. Last year we sold our packs of lefse for $5 and we included three rounds. This year, there was competition and they were selling theirs for less so we compromised and sold our packs with four rounds for $5. Naturally I should have realized that if we sold 100 packages that meant an additional 100 rounds we needed to make. Never occured to me. Hmmmm.... so, in the end we didn't have quite enough potatoes to make the dough and so my dear old mom bought another 20 lbs and we peeled some more on Friday night hoping to be covered.

In class on Friday before right before the day ended I had all my students peeling potatoes. I was really impressed with how they stepped up to the challenge and we got those 50 lbs done in no time. Last year, a student and I did it alone. I guess I learned from THAT mistake. With the help of one student, my mom and I managed to get all the potato mixture cooked and riced. (with proper ingredients added too).

On Saturday I set up at 8 am and mom joined me at 9. Then we added the flour and got everything ready to start rolling and grilling. Just as we were ready to start the grilling, students began to arrive. At our peak we had seven helpers and three grills going. By supper, we had four of us including my mom and me and by this time we were practically automated. We stayed until 10 pm and for the last few hours my coworker, LeAnn, stopped by to help us out. When we packaged everything up we realized we were about 100 rounds short of what we'd sold. We still at least two more batches of potato mixture we hadn't used and my mom wanted to make a bit more lefse from her own potatoes she'd prepared as long as we were all set up. So....

Sunday morning mom and I were back at school at 8 am and I almost fell over when the two students showed up a half hour later. I was amazed at the dedication and willingness of these students to help. Of course the money goes to them and their fellow students but in the past I have found it rather difficult to find kids wiling or able to do as much as they did! We were done with everything by 2 pm and had only to deliver it today. By 5 pm, Monday every piece was sold and even the extra. Yay!

Thank goodness for short weeks or I might not make it to the weekend. By the time we were done on Sunday, I estimated that I'd worked 24 hours making lefse and on Saturday while other switched jobs some, I rolled the entire time. I have never had that kind of muscle fatigue: my body ached in the most bizarre places... the palms of my hands and every inch of the soles of my feet, my lower back, my shoulders, my forearms, my pecs, my calves, my thighs......

Recipe for pain... I mean, lefse is here.