DSC08891-Maadi rowing
This is what 100 kgs of chicken looks like in roasting dishes.

After eight days of constantly moving location, it was a pleasure to arrive at our rented house in Twizel. It had been a long hot drive from Lawrence with long stops for lunch and coffee at Roxborough and Tarras. Read on to learn what is involved when catering for a rowing regatta.

The first rowers, Hamilton Boys, were not due in for 3 days, but there was much to do: take delivery and organise of 6 pallets of supplies; set up the site with all 4 vehicles and trailers correctly positioned, close as possible, to the High Country Lodge back door to limit walking distances; set up the 10 by 10 meter marquee and dinning spaces; establish decent fresh water connections and grey water drains. Kitchens needed a total clean-down and placement of buffet and breakfast stations inside the lodge.

This left a further day and a half to enjoy some R&R - the “Fun on the run“ story tells what the ” Lovely Gruber’s” get up to in their very rare spare time.

From 75 rower arrivals we steadily built to 366 over the next few days. During our 10 days of service we cooked continental breakfasts, bulk packed lunches for 10.30 am and prepared really big evening meals – nearly 1 kg for each high-performance athlete!

This meant just over 100 kilogrammes of meat had to be cooked each night along with 33 special meals meeting a full range of dietary requirements.

DSC08933-Maadi rowingRatatouille is a great dish for special diets, being vegetarian and gluten-free. Can also be made dairy-free.

We all had the opportunity to go down to the lake to see the finals. The highlight was, while a Lovely Grub fuelled teams did not win the Maadi for 2018, we did cater for 4 of the 8 senior rowing eights who made the finals in the boys division.

This was our ninth Maadi Cup in Twizel along with two in Cambridge where we will be again for the next one.  If have a team that need feeding, please give us a call on 03 3048705.