Pasta Preps Begin for Grandma’s Marathon Runners

DULUTH - "Yesterday, today and tomorrow we're doing nothing but cooking noodles really," said DECC Executive Chef Peter Dingmann. Crews are in the kitchen whipping up fuel for Grandma's Marathon runners. Two-thousand pounds of dry spaghetti, 5,000 pounds of marinara sauce and now they've added 1,000 pounds of meatballs."Getting a little bit more authentic this year," said Dingmann. The all you can eat spaghetti dinner is quite the undertaking. However, the crew has cooking the oodles of noodles down to a science."There's so many people involved in this it's like a machine; you couldn't stop it if you wanted to," said Dingmann. First they drop dry pasta into large kettles with boiling water, cook the noodles for about 10 minutes and then toss them into 75 plastic containers for a coating of olive oil and seasonings."It's always been a really good spaghetti recipe,” said DECC Sous Chef Jack Teske. “I expect this year it will be just as good as in the past." The marinara sauce and meatballs are precooked."That's all gonna get heated up in the kettles here on Friday," said Dingmann. Besides the spaghetti and meatballs runners can feast on 600 loaves of bread and 15,000 cookies. A meal complete with plenty of carbs to help them go the distance."You have all different kinds of people coming for this one event and if you can help them in any way to win it feels good," said Teske. Organizers are expecting at least 5,000 people to come out for the spaghetti dinner. The spaghetti feed kicks off Friday from 11 am to 9 pm.