The Football Lull…

    I’ve mentioned how busy we get here around football season already.  So busy I haven’t posted here.  Fortunately, the team’s playing away for the next few weeks and we’re getting around to catching our breath.  Which is really a way of saying we are about to do everything we haven’t been doing for three weeks.  Most notably, this means cleaning, organizing, paperwork, fitting in all those university events that we simply could not handle during a football weekend, and running taste tests and tours.  We all probably got in another hour or two of sleep a day than during the push weeks. Perhaps the pace is a bit more relaxed, but the job stays interesting. 

Farewell to Summer Dinner 9/11/2007

 An example of our highest end catering, this party was held for 8 guests this evening.  Our hostess is quite a foodie herself and spends much time discussing food and cooking with us.  On this occasion, she even had prepared braised beef cheeks for us.   The cheeks were quite delicious, being a texture similar to pot roast, but far more tender and a little richer taste.  After eatng, we got down to business

Menu

A Menu of Future Entrees

Just as a heads up, I thought I’d drop a list of the items I have on the back burner for this blog.

   While I’ll continue to describe the crazy antics of daily work in the kitchen, many of my posts will be on different topics that will likely be of more interest for readers.

Did I mention BBQs?

Thursdays seem to be the big day for after-class get togethers here.  I suppose folks realize Fridays just don’t draw students in when there’s plenty of bars just down the street.  From the moment I walked in until the sun was down, there was nothing but barbecues in my life.  Five different BBQs went out in three hours, feeding 1250 people varied menus of hot dogs, grilled chicken, burgers, sausages, and all the fixin’s.  That might not sound like a terrible amount, but it stressed the limits of our equipment and support services to get them all out on time and to the right place.  Considering we’ve got the big game on Saturday, I was also in charge of putting them all out alone, with cooks from other units coming in to handle the final on-site cooking.  This in theory would allow the other cooks from catering to prep up for the game (I’m planning on devoting a full week to a blow-by-blow of game day prep for our next game if you are interested in seeing the week-long proccess it takes to feed a stadium of folks for four hours), but they all had other events as well, so it’s another early morning and late night tommorrow.

Who:  1650 people total in the afternoon, which is one-fifth of the schools student body.  Not too bad for a day’s work. 
What: Other than the endless burgers and dogs, we also pumped out such interesting items as tuna carpacchio and mousakka for  events
Tommorrow’s menu:  Lobster bake, hor’douvres parties, and desserts at the museum opening.  And two days of football prep.

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year…

Late summer in New England is truly wonderful.  The Sox are playing great (great enough to even let the Yanks sweep them and still lead), Cape Cod is always a wonderful escape from the city — once you get by the traffic, and beautiful harvests are coming in from all the local farms.  The few cool evenings only remind one that the county fairs are just getting ready to start and the horizon will soon be covered in vivid foliage that almost makes one welcome the not-so-slow slide into bleak winter.

    Truly, it is a most wonderful time of the year.

   Unless you work in Boston .  For a college.  As a catering cook.  Like me.

  Then Labor Day means what it really sounds like it should mean.  Work, and lots of it.

  Three thoughts always hover around Labor Day Weekend when you live in Boston…

BBQ!  Football!  School!  For most, the first two are welcome celebrations of the passing of the season, and the last a bit of dread to every Bostonian as we prepare for the invasion…  For me, it brings a mixture of anticipation of exciting times and foreboding of much too exciting times.

   You see,  I work as a catering cook at a top-tier university in Boston, and Labor Day means classes begin, and we change from a sleepy campus with about 2000 daily guests to our own town of 17,000 students, staff, faculty and visitors, all looking to be fed and entertained as part of the college environment.  Preferrably several times a day.  Normally, that is handled admirably by a staff of 500 dining services employees (from chefs and bean counters to students seeking a little extra cash).  But even our wonderful cafeteria food doesn’t fit the desires of all our customers, and we generally have a few dozen functions each day that demand a special bit of attention.  And then there’s football, when we invite 45,000 of our closest friends to come enjoy a nice game and consume tons (literally) of our catered food…

   “In 2006 a crack cooking unit was sent to Walsh Hall for a crime they didn’t commit. These chefs promptly escaped from a maximum security walk-in to the campus underground. Today, still wanted by the administration, they survive as caterers of last resort.  If you have a function, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire: THE A-TEAM”

   We might not be the  A-TEAM, but the adventure and wild rides are certainly here.

   Herein is told the adventures of ten caterers, a dozen support staff, one old kitchen with character, a few trucks and vans, a wall full of event sheets, and highest expectations on unmoveable deadlines.  See what makes our team tick, learn a few tricks of the trade, and maybe leave with a greater appreciation of the life of a caterer. 

    The hours are long, the stress constant, and the kitchen hot and humid.  Or, as I am far too fond of saying in the kitchen,

“Easy Money!”

      I’m not sure I’ve quite got the  hang of the English language yet…

amphibolous