Another summer in the books. For Seabeck, it’s #108. For me, it’s #33. I don’t usually speak of summer counts. I used to say this is my fifth summer, etc. because it made me sound more seasoned since I started in June. I realized that some people thought of us as a summer-only place. I even had people ask me what my off-season job was. Although a majority of our income and donations come from summer groups, we are busy with groups all year long. We start another long streak of consecutive days with groups here right after Labor Day.

Thanks to all who joined us this summer. I feel like we are back on track to have a completely normal 2023. I am not very good at guessing during this pandemic, but I have got at least one right, right? We will look at all our procedures and ways of doing things before next year. I imagine the buffet is going to stay during this off-season, but summer 2023 is still a question. Maybe a hybrid buffet/table service? Maybe a Dining Room remodel to reflect the new reality? Will people still want to eat outside? Who knows? Stay tuned.

One of the things I am thinking of changing is our Dining Room nut policy. We have increased requests for peanut butter and almond milk. I’m not really sure how many nut allergies are out in our user groups because no one has asked for so many years. I do know that many of our groups use nut products for snacks and things. It seems to me that many restrictions have eased up a little due to fewer allergies. Am I right? Please let me know what you think: Would peanut butter in cups and almond milk pose a risk to anyone?

I have other food-related topics to tell you about. These were hot topics on the comment cards this year: Menus not being posted, and no blintzes being served. We didn’t post the menu due to supply chain and food quality issues. Sometimes we received under 75% of what we ordered. Other times we got 11 cases of oyster crackers because they had outed us the last 11 weeks and all the orders were fulfilled at once. Many times, we would open cases of food to find them spoiled. We were changing the menu constantly and didn’t want to disappoint or confuse our guests. Speaking of disappointment, we can’t get the blintzes right now. Our beloved blintzes are made by Tyson Foods under the Lady Astor label. They stopped production during the pandemic because of all the chicken processing trouble. We found another blintz that was just awful. It tasted like cardboard. We hope the good blintzes come back into production soon. We’ll keep checking and looking for alternatives.

I must be hungry; most of this article was about food. HAHA. I hope to see you here again soon. We will be hosting Halloween and 2023 will see the return of the Celtic Arts Concert and other events. We hope to give you many opportunities to visit us all year long.

Thanks,

Chuck

(chuck@seabeck.org)