More Catering

Alright so I mentioned earlier that it's not always being in the kitchen creating fantastic and tantalizing meals.  When we have catered events, we may spend time in the kitchen, but that's only half the story.  In December we had the opportunity to cater the Nu Skin and US Synthetics Christmas parties.  Both events were alot of work, but very different from each other.  So let's take a look!

Nu Skin hosts about 4,500-5,000 people for their party and as far as planning utensils and holders for everything, we decided with their event coordinator to use disposable cups, plates, and silverware.  For an even of this size it's all hands on deck for the culinary arts students

Chef Todd addresses all the students in what each dish has for ingredients in case of food allergies and reminds us of why these events are important for us as future business people in the restaurant industry.  It's kind of a pep rally for us.

There's a lot of prep work from setting up tables and stations to filling food onto trays ready to be served.

As I said earlier it's all hands on deck and everyone has a job on the line, from greeting the guests to refilling the line to actually serving the food.  So the guests would grab a tray from the head of the table and then fill it with the items provided so it was mostly a self serve event.

And of course, no matter which stage of the event you're in, weather it's set up, stocking, serving, or taking stations and tables down, CATERING SHOULD BE FUN!  Also, try to at least get along with your coworkers because you'll spend a lot of time with them and the time goes faster when you're having fun, rather than having "work".


US Synthetic was a different story.  Their event was for about 1100 people, but it was a formal dinner with a show.

With this event, we tried to have as much ready as possible for the guests when they arrived.  So the salads were ready and waiting at each seat and the desserts were already on the table.

Here we have a coconut panacotta (a smooth chilled custard) with a mango chutney as one of the desserts.

And here we have a mini oreo cheesecake with a raspberry coolis.

This event had my class clearing the salad plates and serving the entree course.  I was in the busing station again so i wasn't able to get pictures of the entree for you.  Afterward though, everyone stayed until the guests had gone and pitched in to get the tables and chairs broken down and everything put away because the old adage is true: Many hands make light work.