A Day In My Daughters Life

My Aunt Claire once told me when your adult children ask you to hang out with them, jump at the chance. So when my daughter Kat asked if I would help her by working the Amy’s ice cream booth at Austin City Limits I jumped at the chance. In my mind I envisioned a couple of folding tables filled with ice cream and the biggest challenge would be helping the customers decide what topping they wanted for their ice cream. It was mid October in Texas how many people would want ice cream!?
Sunday October 11 was a scorcher in Texas. I arrived at the venue and was amazed at the enormity of the event. Austin City Limits also know as ACL is a huge event held over 2 weekends at Zilker Park in Austin Texas. The concerts are played out on multiple stages with thousands of people of all ages in attendance. It’s a well organized event that in addition to great music you can find dozens of food and drink booths.
Having the opportunity to see the set up from behind the scenes was a fun eye opener. Each booth went back far enough to hold cooking areas, places to wash dishes with a special area to dump liquids, and huge refrigerated trucks that held the thousands of pounds of food needed to feed this crowd. Yes, we had folding tables, dozens of them, there were also multiple freezers for the ice cream and enormous mixers to make floats. Everything was being made fresh and on site. At Amy’s booth alone the line was four people across and so long that I never saw the person at the end of it. The Amy’s staff were well organized and hard working, everyone knew what to do and patiently helped as I poured more shakes in one day than I had in all the years I had served ice cream to my kids and their friends during their entire childhood.
It was some of the hardest work I have ever done with one of the nicest group of people I ever met. They served hundreds of shakes and gallons of ice cream that day. I was amazed how they kept the ice cream frozen, outdoors on a hot day and in spite of the volume, no shake or ice cream cones were allowed to cross the counter unless they were the same delicious quality you would find in their stores every day.
It was a great day, the music was fabulous, I had an opportunity to visit a few of the other food booths, all who were working just as hard and serving the best their restaurant had to offer. But the best part of the day was seeing my daughter in her work element, organized patient and cheerful. I felt like one of those movies where the mother and daughter switch lives and the mom gets to see how your child has become the responsible adult.
ACL is worth the trip for the music alone just be sure to check out the food booths while you’re there. Austin’s best and most delicious make an impressive showing. and if your there stop by the Amy’s booth I know it will be my first stop.