And in a community of dough-savvy men, Hull is considered by the Ladies Aux to be the best. I've been rolling for years at my church for our chicken pot pie fund-raisers. Another volunteer briskly shapes the shells and readies them for the fillings of sweet cherry, gooey shoofly and sugary snitz. Down the table, Fred Brokenshire trims and pinches the top crusts and slides a dozen or so into each oven to bake. The men will return at 1 in the morning to roast meats until dawn.
Organization is the key.
Co-chair Debra Brokenshire orders food well in advance based on ticket sales and meticulous notes from the previous year's dinners. Some foods, like our mashed potatoes, are more popular each year. Our fresh-baked sausage, made for us by a local butcher, is also popular. Richard Haefner, a restaurant critic and ad man from Annapolis, hasn't missed a Jefferson supper since 1963. By Saturday morning, the kitchen is a whirl of clattering pot tops and the chop-chopping of knives and is steaming with the hearty smells of roasted turkey, simmering pork, bubbling fruits, broths of ham and chicken.