My Catering Job

It is 1:00am and I’m pumped up on the green tea and chocolate I’ve been using to keep me going on the job. Of course I’m home now and I don’t need to be wide awake and ready to work – I need to be able to go to sleep and I’m just going to have to wait.

There is nothing like a good solid dose of a professional kitchen to sober up the naïve food lover – that would be me - who is apt to romanticise the fine eating experience.

The stress, the heat of the kitchen, the general rudeness, getting shoved out of the way if you’re not doing it well enough, fast enough, “go find some dirty cups to pick up and let me do this you’re too slow” The hours spent standing at the propane burner making blini and smiling and chatting with the party guests. The rush to get everything ready before the party starts – with the owners running around frantically announcing “20 minutes” left – “10 minutes before the party starts” and then the long slow burn at the end of the evening when all the party goers are dancing away and we’re washing, drying, packing up and load the car and wishing they’d hurry up and finish their fun so we could get the last few items put away and go home to bed.

I know it sounds insane but I actually enjoy this catering job. Despite the fact that it is real hard work, I have such a good time.

In catering every job is totally different – a different place, different people, a different type of party – its all new. Each job is a new adventure.

The food portion of the evening is of unending interest to me – does that really come as much of a surprise to you? I love all the miniature appetizers that was pass at the beginning of a party, the homemade corned beef that I’ve never tasted like of before, the marvelous capers on the vine that are so beautiful drapped over the little rolls of smoked salmon and delicious to eat as well.

The biggest shock for me is the realization that catering is not about the food – although a lot of times the food is very good. Catering is about presentation, about drama and creating an event, a spectacle out of eating – thus the blini bar, the guacamole bar, the crostini bar… I’ll stop there, but you get the idea.

As a server dressed in all black at one of these events I am completely invisible. There is nothing quite like the sensation of being unseen in the midst of a sea of people… you hear conversations, you observe and yet you yourself are a nonentity. The people at the party do not perceive you as a person, instead I am transformed into the blini lady or the catering girl, or the arm that is carrying that tray of little treats around the room. It is an interesting feeling – to be fully present, but to not be seen.