“…definitely the tuna tartare, and the hazelnut crusted chicken, and… then a nice, big crudite platter…”
My client was reviewing my menu suggestions for her 150-guest cocktail party, adding the last one on her own.
“NO”, I said, a little more aggressively than I had intended. “No”, softer now, but with the same sentiment. “I just can’t do crudite anymore.”
My client paused. The phone was silent. “Ok”, I caved, “we’ll figure something out. Maybe a small crudite is alright.”
Years ago, I worked as a free-lance chef for a big-time catering company in Los Angeles. We would cater colossal parties for the astronomically rich, where every display was over the top. There were epic platters of food – with sausages and cheese flown in from other countries and cupcake towers the size of New York brownstones.
We would cut vegetables for days, whittling jicama and carrot wedges into little pointy daggers, nipping the tops off radishes, and blanching broccoli and sugar snap peas into the brightest green they could be. It was a thing of beauty for sure, but we had to buy and cut three times more veggies than anyone could ever eat.
Catering is all about making platters look full at all times – which means there has to be tons of coverage. We have to make sure that if someone suddenly goes on a Persian cucumber binge, the display still looks abundant. Hey, nothing says success like excess, right? Well, 75% of the cascading peppers, baby tomatoes, and asparagus would wind up in the garbage. It was heartbreaking.
My
friend Chris was recently visiting LA and I decided to surprise him
with one of his favorites - Banana Cake. He lives in NYC and loves to
stop by Billy’s Bakery and pick up a whole Banana cake to take home.
They have great homemade baked goods and it’s definitely worth stopping
by when you’re in the city. Their version of Banana Cake is quite dense
with a sugary sweet frosting but I prefer a lighter more tender cake
with smooth silky cream cheese frosting.
One of my favorites cakes to make is my mom's Upside-Down Pineapple Cake, which was her mother's original recipe that is close to 70 years old! However, today I wanted something that celebrated the beginning of summer.
It wasn't until I moved to the West Coast, that I realized how many
people had been deprived of one of my favorite childhood treats - Whoopie
Pies. A New England favorite, Whoopie Pies were always part
of bake sales, school lunches, and family gatherings. And, they were
quite often the confection upon which many mother's were judged. The
variations in the pie (which is actually cake) and the sweetness and
texture of the filling can differ greatly with each recipe. My Aunt
Mary would often lament about the pies turning out too flat, or the
filling too runny. Our next door neighbor, Mrs. Ekberg, made a
memorable Whoopie Pie, with a completely unique cooked
cream filling, a recipe that she never shared, but I later discovered
the method while researching frostings for Red Velvet Cake. At home, my
sister has become the family champion of Whoopie Pies, and has a blue
ribbon from the county fair to prove it.
