What would you cook for 100 houseguests?  What delicious, nutritious items can you cook on a slim budget? What if your helpers are well meaning volunteers that can’t cook well? What if you had to cook this much food every day for the people in your home?

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve volunteered time cooking breakfast at Isaiah House, a Santa Ana home for the homeless, and these are some of the issues the staff run into. For the next few weeks, this blog will  look at some of their food issues and how they might be relevant to food lovers in this tough economy.

Even if you’ve visited other shelters, Isaiah House isn’t exactly a homeless shelter in the usual sense. It’s not a flop house, nor a soup kitchen. t’s not run by any local government. Nobody preaches scripture. It’s a house where some fifty people live, eat, and sleep under the same roof in their time of need. In addition to the residents, the Isaiah House kitchen helps feed other needy people at the Santa Ana Civic Center.

The window between joblessness and homelessness is razor thin for families that face a job layoff. The New York Times covered this story of the hidden homeless in Orange County today. When families like the Hayworths run out of money, the only thing keeping them off the streets is a place like Isaiah House. I feel it’s important to tell their story. Stay tuned. More to come.