Let the shopping lists begin!  5 pages of a spreadsheet filled with multi-colored-highlighted-items to buy in bulk at Costco, Trader Joe's and last minute grocery stores I am sure. The shopping lists for today include all grocery items to be stored in my kitchen ceiling high. I am also purchasing a ridiculously large amount of meat for tomorrow when I will be balling and baking meatballs and frying sausages.  Today I'll be making the sauce from scratch and storing it in my freezer.

The planning has gone fantastically well thanks to my organized bride and wedding planner.  I have set up rentals to outfit a whole kitchen, hired a staff of fun and hard working caterers (my friends), and successfully offered a tasting to Meredith and Vlad.  I took a week off of all of my regular clients, cleared my schedule and am ready to start cooking!!

THE MENU

Homemade turkey sausage patties topped with a slice of roasted red pepper with a sweet onion date chutney topped with fresh cilantro

Sweet potato mash with sugared pecans

Italian beef meatballs with homemade tomato sauce (a la my wedding)

Stuffed red peppers with rice stuffing

Salad cups in endive with an orange and a sweet walnut goat cheese crumble

Stuffed button mushrooms with my famous rosemary caramelized onion and white wine mashed potatoes

"Leftover" turkey sandwiches with an herbed cranberry mayo

Trial Run of the Turkey Sausage App

Dealing with the menu is the easy part.  The second I got offered this catering adventure I started dreaming up all of my recent favorite food combinations.  My dear friend and professional caterer, Heidi, shared with me one of her favorite books "The Flavor Bible" and it has been my friend in the kitchen ever since. If I have ground pork on hand, or an organic chicken with some wild rice in the cupboard and let's say... a can of tomatoes and a can of garbanzo's, I can look up those food items and see what they pair with.  That helps me make absolutely sensational food and spice pairings that I have never thought of before.  Who knew anchovies was a secret ingredient to the best beef stew ever? (put your hands down you culinary geniuses) A sprinkle of this and a pinch of that and all of a sudden I have a knock out dish!  There is a big flaw in this kind of intuitive cooking which is that nothing is really measured.  "They" say that a good intuition in the kitchen makes for some of the best cooks but that doesn't help me when I want to repeat a dish or write it up for a cooking client.  I usually take the avant-garde approach to a recipe anyway.  If my client has asked for a beef stew I research 4 different recipes, write my own and then make modifications as I am actually cooking the dish.  There is creativity in cooking, my friends, and you have got to let the food speak to you as you cook it!  Okay, I let my weird out.  Let's move on.

My turkey sausage patties are outstanding.  The combination of spices sends your taste buds to another dimension.  I have never made them for app's before so I have decided to add a sweet onion sauce, julienne roasted red peppers topped with a cilantro leaf.

I had a trial run of making sausages out of 3.5 lbs of meat to see how many patties that made. (50 if anyone is curious)  I'm cooking for 200 so I need to make at least 400.  "400" you ask?  "Are you crazy?"  Yes.  And it will probably turn into 500, but I digress.  My plan is that they will be made days ahead of time and then frozen.  I learned that little trick for my wedding.  I made 400 turkey and 400 beef meatballs ahead of time, froze them, and they defrosted overnight in the fridge, ready to be reheated in their sauces the next day.  So that's my plan with the sausages.  By the way I'll be reprising the beef meatballs for this wedding as well.

So here is my pitch for the appetizer. "A warm turkey sausage patty topped with a caramelized onion, white wine and date chutney, graced with julienne roasted bell peppers and finished with a fresh cilantro leaf." Okay so maybe I can't get away with "graced".  Is there a food editor in the house?

Yes, I catered my wedding! 800 personally massaged meatballs, two fresh sauces down to the minced fresh parsley and 16 roasted butternut squashes. 14lbs of rice stuffing made with fresh bone broth and minced veggies, vegan teff bread, and a green bean and potato salad.  It was a challenge that nobody believed I could do until I did.  The weight of such a venture didn't hit me until I was at the reception table with my new husband looking out over the crowd and realizing that 120 people are eating MY FOOD!!!! I didn't start breathing again until the guests started going back for seconds and thirds.  Then I relaxed and let the compliments sink in as they passed by my table to high five me and get more food.

Catering your own wedding is a once in a lifetime thing - and only for the very few adventurous brides. Like me. It is a feat to be proud of: leaving you feeling complete and satisfied and knowing that it will never have to be attempted again.  Until now. (2 months later).  And no, I am not remarrying. You see, my engaged friend who attended the wedding called me up raving about my food and questioning me about possibly, maybe, wanting to do it again for hers.  When she asked me, I was instantly flattered.  My husband was exuberant and was so happy that my food was validated so highly and that I got a gig from throwing my own wedding.  I replied with an equally exerberante yes! and went to work creating a menu.  Things progressed nicely and as time passed the fun part did too.  Reality hit.  This is a serious gig.  I'll be working with someone else's money, writing a proposal, renting a kitchen, renting commercial ovens for this beautiful loft with an empty kitchen and curiously no cooking equipment.

And so the adventure begins.  I have no idea how much turkey I need for my "leftover turkey sandwich" or how many potatoes to boil for my stuffed mushrooms.  200 people need to be appropriately fed, food need to be promptly executed, I some how need to buy the right amount of ingredients, hire the right amount of people, cook the food to the right temperature, and make it look pretty!

Join me on my journey and wish me luck.  I hope this experience to be fun and adventurous: for me to learn a lot about this business (I am such a novice), to learn a bit more about planning and organization, and I especially hope that after many hours of wanting to pull out my hair and throw my computer across the room it will have all been worth it for my dear friends special day!!

Let the games begin. (superhero music)