This Smoky Kitchen adventure starts with a business venture. For those who know me, I’m sure you’re not surprised, but for those who don’t, I continually come up with new ideas to make money, or new reasons to have a party, or new themes for those parties, or some reason or other to do something I don’t normally do. The one I just thought up a few days ago, is to throw an arts and crafts festival, but you’ll just have to email me on that one….

I’ve roped my mother into joining me in a weekly group who cooks and serves dinner to homeless women at Catherine Place in downtown Mobile. I’ve hauled MeeMaw to Bay Minette Civic Center to help me sell Civil War period bonnets and hats that I sewed during my teenage years. After selling only one item all weekend, I put the rest on eBay—an even bigger waste of time. Not a single bid. Grrrr, what do people want to spend their money on? Or, an even better question, who has any money left to spend these days?

At one of those desperate times during college, I had planned to cover a festival in Chickasaw for a newspaper I freelanced for, then. As I heard the details of the Founder’s Day, and how the organizers expected such a great turnout, my wheels started turning.

Surely all those people would want to eat hotdogs and nachos while they silent auction shop, look at displays and enjoy the kid’s Halloween costume contest. Surely. I planned to sell hotdogs, nachos, bagged chips, Cokes, water and even some homemade peanut butter cookies tied up with curling ribbon. I already had a food handler’s permit. I had crock pots for the nacho cheese and I had a Sam’s card my mother had bought me.

Mom and I went to Sam’s and proceeded to load the buggy down with a big box of tortilla chips, cans of cheese, hotdog wieners, buns, condiments, plus those little paper boats that serve as a platter/bowl and square sheets of aluminum foil to wrap the hot dogs in.

We piled in canned Cokes and bottled water, plastic gloves, then trekked toward the check out. It’s amazing how the hundreds of dollars add up at Sam’s Club. Any item, no matter how cheap, adds up to a chunk of change when it only comes in feed-an-army size. Mom was sweet enough to “invest” her money in the endeavor and I’d pay for the overhead out of my profits from the festival.

The night before the big day, I thoroughly exhausted myself in preparation. I put all the wieners in their buns and wrapped each hotdog in aluminum foil. They went into a large, zip-up cooler and into the fridge. I packed the car with condiments, chips and cheese, crock pot, serving spoon, napkins, gloves, towels to wrap the cheesy crock pot in during the journey home…you name it, it was crammed into the hatchback of my Camaro.

Bright and early the next morning, I set up my booth, poured the cheese in the crock pot, and walked over to the children’s costume contest to complete my day-job duties. Snap, snap, snap with the camera and back to my booth to sell nachos like crazy and make tons of money.

As I returned to the table, I had a customer. A little boy wanted nachos and his mother had given in. I spooned the cheese over the boat of chips, exchanged money and stood smiling with pride as they walked away. After a few minutes, though, my self-esteem boost came crashing down as I realized why the cheese had seemed so much thicker than usual. It was the quality of the tub of cheese, it was the temperature. As you know, crock pots take a while to heat up, so my first customer had walked away with cold cheese.

I turned the crock pot on high, stirred and stirred, and waited for my next customer. I waited a long time. As luck would have it, by the time the next person ordered nachos, the cheese was hot, and I poured melty goodness over the salty chips and sent them off with a nod of satisfaction.

The day progressed. A few hotdogs and few more nachos were sold. One bag of chips slipped over my table and into the hands of a little girl. Cokes disappeared from ice-filled coolers and several people questioned why the festival wasn’t providing water for free.

As I glared at the stray cheese that had made its way from crock pot to spoon, to table, to everywhere else cheese shouldn’t be, I realized that the festival was nearly over, and that I had barely put a dent in my wares. One elderly lady, who had come two different times to buy a package of peanut butter cookies, came back to see if she could take the rest home for a discount. At that point, I was glad to be rid of a few more items.

I packed up, drove home, unpacked and flung myself on the couch. As I sat, sprawled out and exhausted, I remained puzzled over how my products hadn’t flown from their shelves. Was America losing its taste for junk food? Even at a festival…more likely I’d overdone, as I always do, and bought too many items—expecting a large crowd with devouring appetites.

I spent the next few days pawning off leftovers and inviting friends over for dinner. The hotdogs simply refused to disappear and I felt too terrible to throw away food when children in other countries go to bed hungry. One too many pitiful commercials coupled with my failed business venture found me sprinting toward the cooler of hotdogs and hoisting it into the car. Homeless people! I will give these hotdogs to homeless people!

I steered the car to downtown Mobile and found my way to Spanish Plaza, near the Civic Center. One homeless guy. Really?! Must’ve been the same one sleeping on the bench during Lauren’s impromptu, park wedding. Well, he got a handful of hotdogs and off I went, again. Finally, I approached Bienville Square, where I studied the plethora of people. I sat wondering if they were homeless or if I would insult innocent park goers and people on their lunch breaks.

I stepped out of the car and examined the scene. No, surely the 30 or so people who rambled around the park, sat on benches and in the grass were, indeed, homeless. My decision became final when I spotted a suitcase sitting beside someone in the grass.

I put my purse behind my seat, put my keys in my pocket, and pulled the cooler from the car. I began to walk slowly toward the first man sitting on a bench. I felt my heartbeat pounding in my ears as I approached, and I thought about what a horrible person I must be for getting frightened of people who’d run across bad luck, made wrong choices, or maybe just didn’t have the amazingly supportive family that I do.

He raised his head as I stopped to stand beside him. I lifted the cooler a little and mustered a quiet, “Are you hungry?”

He stared at me through his confused expression, finally saying, “Yes, a little.”

I smiled and put the cooler down to open the lid. As I did, I explained that I’d made a whole lot of extra hotdogs and didn’t want them to go to waste. I put one in each of his hands and lifted the cooler again.

I stopped in front of two women, next, who were standing beside a path to the fountain.

“Are you hungry?”

No words this time, just cocked heads and silence.

I set the cooler on the sidewalk and opened the lid. I offered up two handfuls of hotdogs and said they could have them if they wanted them.

“For free?”

“Yes. Free. You see, I made too many and I just couldn’t throw them away.”

The two women thanked me and ate the hotdogs.

I walked to the center of the park and put my cooler down beside the large black fountain adorned with pineapples. I watched as the clear water leapt from pool to pool and let the sound of water run a calm over me.

As a man walked past, offered the hotdogs again. This time, I opened the lid and knelt down to hand them out, and he knelt down, too, continuing to listen as I told my story.

Once he understood my purpose, he called out to a few others as they passed. Before I knew it, hands were reaching into the cooler from all angles and smiling faces were looking up at me. Thank yous poured from people as they left, arms full of hotdogs and worry leaving their faces.

That man had continued to kneel by the cooler and hand out helpings. As they reached the bottom, some of the melted ice had gotten the buns soggy, but he kept right on distributing, saying, “Don’t worry, the wiener is still good.”

As the last few people stood eating their lunch, the man stood to his feet and smiled at me. I smiled back and reached to replace the lid and pick up the cooler.

A woman said, “Thank you,” from behind a mouthful of hotdog and I turned and stopped for a moment.

“You’re welcome. And have a blessed day.”

“You have a blessed day, too.”