I've only been around LDS Church kitchens. They consist of one standard home range with one oven and four burners, a large home fridge, cupboards, counters, two sinks, and the Stake Center has a kitchen island with a sink. This includes the pass throughs with the roll up doors.
The water for washing is hot, you can find a few towels for drying, someone ushally argues about weither to put the bleach in the wash or rinse water, and there is ushally a large garbage can with bags that fit.
I cleaned the vent in the door between the RS room and the kitchen one time, it was filthy with old dust. I also pulled out the fridge and cleaned under and behind it.
I walked into a 'church kitchen' this last week. (I'm taking a Dave Ramsey class at a local church[financial peace planning]) and they had a professional dishwasher! one with the rack you put the dishes on and it goes through a steam bath! There was a grill for pancakes and hamburgers. The 'range' was big enough you could fit two 14 lb. turkeys in it at once. It was a gas range with SIX burners on top!! This kitchen had pleanty of cupboards and was the same size as the Stake Centers kitchen!!!!
What cheap sakes the TSCC is.
Does anyone ever know if the Church had any professional equipment or large ovens or even a commercial fridge??
That's right, allowing food to actually be prepared there triggers health regulations, liabilities, and insurance issues which the suits don't want to deal with. Really sad. A lot of bonding could happen cooking together. Every other church I've been to allows cooking. Could also be that they want to be cheaper when new buildings go up and need to ban cooking everywhere so members don't complain as much about inequities in cooking facilities from ward to ward.
Our local ward uses the facilities of a protestant church whenever they want to have a quality activity that requires a decent kitchen or child care facilities.
It perplexes me that the Mormons never wonder why "God's True Church" can't provide proper facilities but the heathen churches are all getting it right. God's chosen people pay once in tithing and then again when they have to pay to rent the facilities of another, better, cleaner church. And the protestant church doesn't require 10% tithing from their members either. Go figure.
but I have followed Dr. Phil for a long time because at a time in my life I really needed to hear what he said he was on Oprah. He asked a woman why her ex treated her like he did and she thought a few minutes and then said, "Because I let him." That was a real eye opener for me and he had me hooked. I take Dr. Phil and Dr. Laura with a grain of salt. I used to listen to Dr. Laura when I'd go to pick up my kids from school back in the 1990s to 2000s. They hated her, BUT she also gave me a back bone. I was so broken that I needed someone to tell me that I could stand up for myself and they did.
I was actually asked to be on Oprah with Dr. Phil as I wrote to her show. He wanted to talk to my husband more than me. They called me several times and sent me mail. I asked my kids if they wanted our story on the Oprah show and they said, "No." So we didn't go on the show.
But those 2 did help me force my husband to treat me with dignity and respect.
Working with the local soup kitchens, I find other churches actually help feed the needy, and have the facilities to do it.
My understanding for the heating only restrictions is the church self-insures their buildings and don't want the fire risk.
About Dave Ramsey, some of his concepts started my decision to leave. We had piled up a lot of debt with a back injury of mine and mental hospital stay for my son. His statements that we get out of debt first, then start paying 10% donations got me thinking.
Found this thread to find out how much trouble I'd get in if I go ahead and use the oven in the church kitchen. I think I'm gonna go for it. Although I may change my mind as the actual day gets closer. May not be worth the fallout.
It's really simple: A kitchen that is used to prepare and serve food to the public must meet the city health code standards for restaurants/commercial kitchens.
This includes a triple sink and commercial grade dish washing facilities, refrigeration facilities, and food preparation area cleaning standards.
That is a fairly high bar to clear, but I have seen churches that do in fact have commercial kitchens. I have never seen a commercial kitchen in an LDS church.
Even a small commercial kitchen can run $30K to $50K. LDS Inc has decided it is not worth the money. The point can be argued, and I think buildings with 3 or 4 wards could justify the cost, but their decision is not totally unreasonable. Other organizations do the same thing.
per most building codes, "cooking" food on a stove requires a vent thru the roof, at least to the outside as a fire-prevention issue. Again, it's a $$$ issue for the suits...
Interesting. The little Episcopal church I grew up in built a new facility in the mid '70's with a beautiful big kitchen. The Catholic church has a commercial size kitchen, and even the little Foursquare church our local charter school rented space from has a kitchen that any restaurant would like to have. I never went in to the LDS kitchen, but I thought they probably had a big one next to the "cultural hall."
OP mentioning the dishwasher with the stainless steel slide up doors jogged my memory.
My stake center where I grew up had a very large kitchen where members regularly prepared food for large ward parties. The same stake built a bowwery next to Barton Creek, with large food preparation areas, and appliances to cook.
I used to play in a wedding band in SLC area in the late seventies and visited many LDS stake centers and ward houses. Some of these had amazing Gyms, Gardens, and kitchens. Two really stand out in my memories, one was in the Avenues and one was the Garden Park Ward (I think), there was also a very amazing one in Sugar House area. From talking to currently active NOMs they have told me none of these are anything like they used to be.
There was a large ward in Scandinavia where I was a missionary, that had a very nice garden just off the Chapel. I went back to visit this church and it now has a small hill covered with weeds where a nice garden once grew. Very symbolic of mormonism I believe.
If that bowery was in Bountiful, then that was the ward house I grew up in. I remember many nice meals cooked in that large kitchen in the 70's. And my sister had her wedding reception at the Bowery.
My ancient ward building had a kitchen in the basement and was where I did sacrament prep and had to haul all that sacrament shit up a narrow staircase. I never did see the kitchen used for actual cooking.
The kitchen is symbolic of why the Mormons will never be accepted as a Christian church. As mentioned above other churches use their kitchens to prepare food for others. Some even use their buildings for emergency shelters for the community.
When I was in the Bishopric in the late eighties we made sure the kitchen was fully equipped for our new building. Within a few years most of the items were gone. And now, as mentioned, it is hardly used. Members bring the food from home.
This follows the pattern of the leaders. Provide little for the members and use the funds for investments.
The results are what the leaders want. You can see this in the activities.
Mormons talk Christ centered but their action proves otherwise.
I have been volunteering with the Salvation Army for a year. I have helped in their kitchen for about six months. I mainly washed dishes because I had not taken the Safe-Serve class which is required(in Florida) before working with food. It is pretty in depth and now I will never eat at a buffet again-LOL.
But as some have said, other missions and churches kitchens provide free meals for the community. There is no reason for the LDS kitchens. They can just use a room with a table to prepare food for themselves. Plus I doubt the food is warmed to what the standard requires anyway. If it was they would be cooking.
It is wise to not use the Mormon kitchens, at all. They are unsanitary. The refrigerator in ours was an old one donated by one of the members, and could never be completely clean in the cracks. They always kept the kitchen tightly locked.
It is nice to not use the bathrooms, either. You are one less person to clean up after.
Don't sit in certain seats in the chapel area, as those are reserved for important people during firesides and stake conferences. Go sit in the folding chairs in the back. The largest families like to sit in the same pews, and get upset if someone else sits there. Do not sit with your friends; only sit with your family. Singles, divorcees and widowed people usually sit in the back.
Don't even go into the chapel unless you are wearing a skirt (women) or a white shirt (men).
In fact, don't go in the chapel at all--one less person for them to vacuum up after.
Shoes are not allowed to be worn in the temple. You wear slippers, to preserve the sacred carpets.
Don't sit on the couches and chairs in the temple; those are for decoration, only, to give the temple a more welcoming appearance (good luck with that). They have matrons on chair-gaurd-duty to shoo you off the furniture.
Don't use the drinking fountain at a Mormon church, unless you want to catch a virus, bacteria, fungus, or all three at once. The same applies to drinking the sacrament water and eating the sacrament bread.
No talking in the chapel, in meetings, after meetings, before meetings, in the hallways in the foyer or outside, ever, anywhere.
There is no place more unwelcoming, forbidding, and scary as a Mormon ward house--except for a Mormon temple.
the thought of the possibility of a health inspector checking on a Mormon kitchen (chapels, temples) must send shivers to the leaders, their ratings / reports / deficiency notices would be unwelcome.
In our ward, we used to hold breakfasts and cook BBQ's a few times a year.
We would all bring stuff to cook with, but we couldn't use the kitchen, we set up outside on tables to cook the food in the parking lot under tents.
It was great fun until a STATE food inspector showed up (was tipped off by an exmo), and SHUT US DOWN in the middle of a ward BBQ!! Police were called and everything and forced us to stop.
We had tons of violations, and the ward had to pay hefty fines for preparing food for the public without licensing and inspections.
That was a decade or so ago, and the ward has had potlucks ever since.
TonyS Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > In our ward, we used to hold breakfasts and cook > BBQ's a few times a year. > > We would all bring stuff to cook with, but we > couldn't use the kitchen, we set up outside on > tables to cook the food in the parking lot under > tents. > > It was great fun until a STATE food inspector > showed up (was tipped off by an exmo), and SHUT US > DOWN in the middle of a ward BBQ!!
> Police were called and everything and forced us to stop.
Occasionally, people would come with prepared food to donate--sometimes caterers with platters of sandwiches and things. "The event got cancelled--can I donate this? I don't want to see it go to waste."
"Sorry," the supervisor would reply. "We can't serve it--health code." So the guy would take it off to be dumped.
(But not until we staff took as much as we could pack and take home! I learned to keep a shopping bag of Tupperware in my car to be ready for those occasions.)
[Speaking of which--we hardly ever hear from "Tupperwhere" these days. Hope she's doing okay. Great handle!]
Friends who live in Northern States and attend small branches with their own buildings(rented - but renovated by SLC) actually use the kitchen for cooking as they have branch dinners at least once a month. Pot lucks - with members cooking roasts and such during meetings so they will be ready after.
Cold weather with snow and ice and a number of the women and girls even wear pants to church in that weather.