Crab, Chili and Mint Crostini 

So… I did catering. I must now bow to all caterers out there; you are a stronger breed than me. I agreed to this insanity during a meeting where many things were being asked for. You know, “Who can do this?’” and “Can someone take care of the thing in the place?” Most of the time I was not even sure that they were speaking English. I kept occasionally saying yes to jobs that sounded normal like “check this on the website”. Anyway, feeling particularly useless at one meeting the convener said the word “food”. Instantly I sat up, back straight and ready. I knew that word! It was a word in the English language AND I knew how to MAKE that word! Like the student in class who puts her hand up before the question was asked, I volunteered my and my friend’s (who was not present and could not stop me) services in the kitchen, creating food to make the event special.

I left the meeting finally feeling like I had contributed. As I began planning a menu it was only then it occurred to me to confirm the number of attendees. I say confirm but I had not bothered to ask at the time and had a solid number in my head of 30. I was sure 30 people would be coming. Because the max I have ever cooked for is 40 so I thought in my head how magnificent I would be with 30. Then came the email “we are expecting 80 to 100 but plan for 100”. Totally fine! I was all cocky and arrogant. I KNOW what I am doing and I will be amazing. I wrote back saying this in a slightly more humble tone. After the email was sent however, I did sort of black out for a while; I am not sure for how long but Amelia arrived home from school and pulled me out of the stupor. I recovered and set about planning the day. There were testing days with friends (the one I had already promised to use and her family), shopping days, and more shopping days.

Next, I was asked for a cost estimate. I stared at my computer for a while and then opened the Google page and typed in “What do I do when someone asks me for a catering quote?” Google tried to be helpful but I think it was confused because only an idiot would agree to do catering without knowing how to make a catering quote. Luckily Word saved the day and gave me a template. I chose the menu template first and filled out an entire menu including amazing writing descriptions like:

Caprese Skewers

A mini caprese salad on a stick

(This one took the longest, oddly. I kept staring at it because the title seemed self explanatory and I could not think of another way to explain it.... even though I'm, you know, trying to be a writer and all...) I did this with all of my dishes and then realized because “my clients” are used to professional caterers they probably just want an invoice. Which I then Googled and subsequently found a template for on Word. I could then arrive at the next meeting looking all professional and confident (thanks Word, if you are reading this, which would be hard not to since I am writing on you).

On the first testing day, I discovered that I do not have a sophisticated palate, when I tried to make crab crostini with actual crab. I cracked open the can and mixed all the ingredients carefully in to the bowl, placed it on my perfectly toasted crostini and spat it out. Apparently, you can take the girl out of Colorado, the land locked seafood deprived State, but she will never get over her aversion to eating a crustacean. (Much to the disappointment of my extremely classy sister, who continues to try and refine my taste.)  So, on the menu it remained but with fake crab made of fish and dyed with streaks of pink. Yum.

 

Two days before, I spend the entire night figuring out how to make chocolate cups. This ends with me covered in chocolate (picture a giant human version of the chocolate Easter bunny) a nice decorating of the carpet and couch with beautiful chocolate drips, and some misshapen cups which I hope no one will notice because at least they taste yummy.

Finally, after dreaming about roasted red peppers attacking me in my sleep and dreams about cooking at the event and having to run around the counter to rescue someone from anaphylactic shock because they had consumed an allergen in my food (yes, actual nurse-turned-caterer dream), the day before finally arrived. I spent the day with gallons of cream cheese and cursing my tiny sink, all the while reminding myself that people actually do this for a living and I should just snap out of it.

My husband arrived home to my chaos and I began to assign him some jobs. I find it best to give him one job at a time otherwise he ends up looking like one of those patients in the mental institution (in the movies) that paces back and forth and finds it particularly important to study the corner of the ceiling. So, one job at a time. Unfortunately, I usually lose track of how long it has been since I gave him the last job and mindlessly shout another one. At one point (we are nearing the ten pm mark) I yell “Arg, I asked you to chop the celery! What have you been doing!?” I turn to find him elbow deep in the dishes that I asked him to do after I asked him to cut the celery. And he responds “I have been doing the ten other things you asked me to do after you asked me to cut the celery.” He remains calm.

“Never mind,” I say, not bothering to apologize, “we really need to make the bruschetta.” And I go back to the chocolate cups. He says under his breath that “it is late and you really should get to bed” to which I snap “if I don’t get the bruschetta done, it’s over its ALL OVER, this whole thing is just a DISASTER.” Dutifully he starts slicing the bread and I set about conquering more chocolate cups. After the first batch is out of the oven he asks me to rub the garlic on top. As a side note, if you are making 400 pieces of bruschetta don’t balance them on top of the strainer which is balanced on top of the large stock pot because if you do you will send all of them to the ground. And you will swear a lot. In my defense there was nowhere else to put the tray… as you can see…

We get to bed at 3 am with 2/3 of the bruscetta (all of it was made but a third ended up on the floor.)

Day of, I ask my husband to go in late to work because I need help loading the car. I had planned to drive our van but unfortunately it needed a warrant (a New Zealand thing) which required new tires. So I am stuck with the toy yellow car with two doors and a moving truck worth of food. Also, as an added bonus, I had to go to class so everything had to be kept chilled and out of the sun for two hours (it's the middle of summer).

I arrive at the university and fall out of my clown car, picture my unwashed hair, crazed look in my eye. I look more like one of those clowns who live in their car and arrive to a children’s party with all their worldly possessions and completely drunk and are then “asked” to leave by a couple of the fathers present.

 

I then drive to my friend’s house to continue cooking because I live 45 minutes away. I take over her kitchen and boss my two best friends around for three hours then have to pack the clown car back up again. Then I drive back to University where the event is being held and fall out of the clown car while trying to keep everything else from falling out. Meanwhile, I am thinking this may have been a mistake and is there any way I could just cut up McDonald’s hamburgers and call it “retro”?

I have to get everything put together and plated in under one hour. I do not. I act like a Russian dictator (one of the bad ones, you know, from before...) to those assigned to help me.  The honored guests arrive (including several of my professors and the head of the English department) to find me trying to squirt mango sauce out of a receptacle that is now clogged with a piece of chili. In the end I went for Jackson Pollock-inspired plates called “Splattered chili mango”. Then they all watched (because the kitchen is in the middle of the room, you know like on a stage) as I tried to fill the afore mentioned chocolate cups with dairy free pudding. I was trying to use a cake decorating tube with a screw on lid. I would fill three and then the tube lid would explode off causing me to shout (under my breath of course) MOTHER ffffffffffffffff…dang it! And again MOTHER FFFFFFFFF… dang it!

I think the evening was a success… people were smiling and eating… I couldn’t really see straight... there is one picture of me at the event… I hope I don’t normally look like this… no one ate the celery…At the end of the night I found the 100 plates I had purchased for the event… apparently I didn’t notice people trying to balance food on napkins all night… I spent the next three days trying to convince my daughter that she liked crab, chili, mint, crostini because I went over budget and had to even it out by eating the leftovers instead of buying groceries. She does not like crab, chili, mint crostini, especially for breakfast strangely. But not wanting to be mean she would say with ultimate diplomacy, “I know it’s good I just… I just don’t want it right now…” This was usually followed by an uncontrolled sound like “ugh” as she gagged down the bite I begged her to try.

So hats off to all caterers I think it is safe to say your job is secure from me at least.