Cook Amanda Bernier is not your average kitchen supervisor.

For starters, she has more than 100 volunteers who help her put out meals, not a paid staff of pros.

It’s not unusual for her “customers” to have mental or physical disabilities, or to not speak English.

She doesn’t know day to day what food she will have available to prepare her meals with, and often runs out of butter and condiments.

And there’s no telling how many people she will have to serve on any given day.

But one thing Bernier does know is that the Trinity Jubilee Center in the basement of Trinity Episcopal Church in Lewiston, provides a critical service feeding thousands of people every month, and that as the new kitchen supervisor she plays a vital role in that process, often helping people who are in “dark times.”

The center, which is not affiliated with the church, has been nourishing people for 25 years, these days serving lunch to 90 to 200 people a day, Monday through Saturday. On a rainy day earlier this month Bernier and her volunteers filled 97 hungry bellies.

“Every day we have a green salad and a fruit salad, as well as two starches – rice, potatoes and a pasta of some sort – and two to three protein choices like chicken, beef, pork or even lamb, and sometimes,” she adds, “we serve something as simple as hot dogs.”

The center also offers a hot vegetable, such as carrots and green beans, plus one extra — “usually something that’s served as a second serving or a sample, like bites of pizza or a meatball sub,” says Bernier, donated by a local sandwich shop. There are also cakes, cookies and pies donated by the bakery at Hannaford, as well as juice, coffee and milk.

“Our lineup in our kitchen is not like a typical soup kitchen. (Clients) have choices when they come in . . . it’s more like a buffet,” she says.

Approximately 99 percent of the food served at Trinity Jubilee is donated. “We receive donations from Hannaford on a daily basis,” says Bernier, grateful for those donations and donations received from local food pantries and individuals.

Erin Reed, executive director of the center, explains: “We partner with Hannaford, Bates College, St. Mary’s and CMMC to bring in donations of leftover or about-to-expire food that would otherwise go to waste, (and) our volunteers do more than 15 pickups a week.”

“A lot of our meat is donated,” so using the varied cuts provided “we make portion-size pieces,” says Bernier, adding, “We have to be creative.”

For instance: “Recently, we (prepared) a ginger orange chicken. When you get a case of oranges donated, you have to come up with a way to use them. . . . We’ve also done a cherry apple chicken,” and both were “big hits,” she says.

Bernier often prepares dishes like teriyaki beef, sweet-and-sour pork and Mexican-style beef tips.

“Seasonings, butter and condiments are tough,” she notes, adding, “We run out of the simple things that you take for granted at home.”

According to Bernier, one of the center’s biggest challenges is not being able to plan a menu because it’s too hard to gauge the number of mouths the center will feed on any given day. The center has to try to take snow days and school vacations into consideration. And must adjust for demand at the end of the month, which is “when the money runs out” and food insecurity is more prevalent. Even knowing all that, says Bernier, there is often no rhyme or reason to the fluctuation in their numbers.

‘Best of both worlds’

Bernier was born in raised in Brunswick and still lives in the Brunswick area. Though she is not professionally trained, she has been cooking and in the restaurant business for more than 20 years, including being a restaurant owner and the manager of the Captain Daniel Stone Inn in Brunswick.

She also studied psychology in college, which she considers perfect training for her current position.

Referring to her education and work history, “this is the best of both worlds,” she says. “I deal with addiction and metal illness. . . . We help clients who are in dark times.”

According to Reed, “There are a lot of folks struggling with mental illness, developmental disabilities, physical disabilities, homelessness and other issues who really appreciate having a place where they can get a hot meal, pick up their mail, use the phone and be part of a community.

“It’s all about having compassion,” says Bernier.

Bernier also works closely with many clients who, she says, “are new to America. . . . The language barrier is huge.” Bernier teaches basic English by holding up and identifying items.

The kitchen is just one aspect of the center’s mission. “That’s not even the beginning of what we do,” says Bernier.

“We run five programs: a soup kitchen, food pantry, day shelter, resource center, and refugee integration program. Folks can get everything from groceries to medical care to a winter coat to help find a job. We help hundreds of people write their resume and search for work every year, (but) it all starts with food,” says Reed. “We want to feed people when they’re hungry and then help them address the reason they’re hungry.”

To get the many meals out to hungry center visitors, Bernier works with 104 volunteers, usually about 35 a day. They help prepare and serve the food, clean the tables, put away the chairs, and rotate the food and produce so they have “first in first out.”

Every week, “we have a volunteer of the week, and we post their picture. . . . Everyone tries to be volunteer of the week,” Bernier says, smiling.

“We also have ‘fun days,’ (where the center honors things such as) international women’s day,” says Bernier, and “once each month we have a special day where we choose a volunteer who prepares a meal from their country. We’ve done Angola, Congo and Somalia” to name a few.

And what are Bernier’s favorite dishes? “I like when I can get really creative, like the cherry apple chicken, and macaroni and cheese using different varietals of cheese,” she says. “We’ve made some fun mac and cheeses!”

She adds, “We make people happy, just as we would if they were coming into a restaurant. I love it here, I love the people here and I love what I do.”

“We want to feed people when they’re hungry and then help them address the reason they’re hungry.”

— Erin Reed, executive director of the Trinity Jubilee Center.

Cherry apple chicken

Ingredients:

8 chicken breasts, boneless and skinless

7 ounces olive oil

4 teaspoons honey

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted

2 ounces red wine vinegar

2 tablespoon Chinese 5 spice

Salt and freshly ground black pepper (to taste)

3 celery stalks chopped

3 medium apples sliced

8.5 ounces frozen cherries

Jasmine rice

Directions:

Place chicken in a baking dish.

Mix olive oil, honey, butter and vinegar.

Pour mixture over chicken

Top with spices, celery, finishing with fruit.

Cover with aluminum foil. Cook at 375 for 45 minutes.

Serve with or over jasmine rice

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