Fort Simpson (Dec 15/06) - When the Bompas bazaar started at 1 p.m. on Dec. 9 in Fort Simpson, crowds of people wandered into the school's gym in search of shopping deals.

Members of the crowd were met by the smiling faces of people who had their wares on display. Although their happy demeanours made the bazaar look easy, a lot of effort went into preparing for the event.

At her station beside the gym door, Renalyn Pascua-Matte had a table full of traditional dishes from South-east Asia. The plates full of beef and vegetable samosas, Vietnamese and vegetable spring rolls and skewers of satay pork, beef and chicken were the products of one sleepless night.

Although the meat on the skewers had been marinating for three days, the dishes were all put together the night before the bazaar. The spring rolls have to be fried just a few hours before being served or they won't be crispy, said Pascua-Matte.

She stood in front of her oven in the early morning hours with four pots on burners frying the rolls while the satay meat was broiling in the oven.

"You just have to concentrate," Pascua-Matte said with a smile.

At the Moose Hide Mama table across the gym there were also cases of late night baking but a lot had been left to chance.

"We baked a lot," said Susan Coyne.

Members of the team were told to bring a baked good but were allowed to decide what they wanted to make. It was only chance in the end that everyone didn't bring the same thing, admitted Susie Hanna.

Hanna's contribution to the table included three types of muffins and raspberry rugelach. Most of the food was made the night before but some of the muffins were left to Saturday morning.

"It takes a really long time," said Hanna.

Tracy Michel knows exactly how long baking can take. She started a week ago to prepare her goods for the bazaar.

Michel started with her fruit loaves which she could freeze and moved through doughnuts, cookies and muffins before making her breads and pies last.

"It's a lot of work and long hours," she said.

To space the baking out, Michel spent a bit of time in the kitchen every day. Luckily, Michel likes to bake and enjoys making different recipes and learning from them.

"I'm always baking," she said.

While her table full of goods represented a lot of time, it also represented a lot of ingredients.

When 10-pound bags of flour go on sale, Michel said she buys four to six bags.

Some time management and planning was also used by Lynn Larter to prepare her 50 empanadas, which are meat filled turnovers, and 120 spring rolls.

It took a total of six hours to make the spring rolls, said Larter. The brown beef and mixed vegetable filling was made beforehand.

Rolling the filling into the wraps, however, can take time.

"It depends how fast you are," she said.

But the rolling has to be done just right. If it's not tight enough the spring roll will explode when you put it in the oil, said Larter.

To make sure the spring rolls were fresh and warm, Larter started frying an hour before the bazaar and used her husband Nic as a carrier to walk back and forth from their house as more were finished.

But all the work was for a good cause.

"We did it to help the school," Larter said.