Happy New Year!!!

May the coming year bring you great joy, love, and prosperity.

And to make the world a better place, remember to Vote For Pedro.

I received an e-mail today critical of the fact that I could "whine about a stupid and ridiculous catering" when people across the globe are coming to terms of the devastation wreaked by the Tsunami.

(Oh how would I ever be a good person were it not for the e-mail moral police...)

As you may know, it's not too often I speak of world events here. Nor do I have any intention of starting. This is a blog about my life as a caterer. I am not a news journalist.

There are enough sites out there dedicated to news and matters of the world. I like to think of my little corner of the web as an escape of sorts. It is for me, anyway.

But please make no mistake that I am aware of what is happening. My heart could not be more burdened for those effected by this monumental tragedy. The devastation, the suffering, and the ongoing sorrow felt by this will not soon be forgotten.

So to the person who e-mailed me, be assured I am aware of what is happening.

And be assured that tomorrow is another day and there will be another blog where I whine and complain "about a stupid and ridiculous catering."

In the mean time, I do strongly encourage you visit Elizabeth Soutter and Motherhood Is Not for Whimps for excellent pieces concerning the current state of the world.

Ok so it's not that I hate all people in general.

I happen to be a great lover of man kind.

Really.

But the rude-ass bossy cows of the world do get under my skin.

Or as The Sister-In-Law or The Friend In Baltimore would say, all the bossy Heifer's of the world.

Travel back in time with me to last Thursday.

We were in the kitchen, things were running smoothly. The Madeira sauce was simmering in perfection, the asparagus was waiting its turn in the oven, and the shrimp cocktails were perfectly plump and succulent. I was just in the middle of a joke about the latex gloves we were sporting (just a little Whore Humor) when in rushes the Matron of Honor.

“Ok, we’re here. And this is what you will do.”

I stopped stirring and peeked around the stove to see what was going on.

“The bridesmaids were supposed to cut and serve the cake but we decided on the drive over here that we don’t want to. It’s a pain. So you need to cut the cake. And when you do so, you will need to bring a tray of these pastries to each table, we don’t want to.”

“Ok? Have I made myself clear?”

Dead silence.

Awkward dead silence.

Before any of us had a chance to respond The Bartender slammed into the kitchen mumbling, “Fucking Pigs!”, while she grabbed more Chardonnay from the cooler. “Stupid no good ass holes – BACK UP FROM THE BAR”, was what she mumbled on the way out the door.

The Maid of Honor from Hell stormed out after her wanting to see what "all the fuss was about".

That’s moment pretty much set the tone for how the entire night was going to go. The MOH from Hell spent most of her night in the kitchen barking out orders along with random guests from the party asking for things like "diet Coke", "cocktail sauce with less heat", and "did we put all the smoked salmon out or were we hiding some in the kitchen". All the while The Bartender spent her night coming in and out of the kitchen to shout expletives and head back out into the throngs of drunkards and pigs.

That is how this group was known - The Drunkards and Pigs.

I don’t really know where it all turned. When meeting with The Clients they seemed like perfectly reasonable people. Very organized, very kind. Very willing to step outside the box and try new things.

But somewhere on the week of the wedding it all fell to Hell and everyone lost their damn minds.

And in the process we lost our will to fight. There was no winning with this group. So for the first time ever we worked in silence. Hauling plates and refilling water glasses and restocking the bar. I think it was more the shock of it all that had us so muffled. I just don't know how we could have prepared for any of it.

I don’t think I have ever served such an unruly crowd or dealt with such animals at the bar. People were eating with their hands. With their hands! I mean the people were dressed well, the decorations were stunning, and the food was to die for. But had you not known these people were celebrating a wedding, you would have thought it was a banquet honoring Henry IIIV.

At one point a Bridesmaid came running in the kitchen screaming, "We're having a crisis at the bar - we need help!" and I thought that out of sheer desperation, the bartender had impaled herself on the cork key. "Hurry, come quick!"

So I took off out of the kitchen trying to remember all the things I learned in first-aid class, hoping I could make a tournaquet out of my towel and a wooden spoon.

When I got there I had to actually elbow people to move out of my way. I really expected there to be a lot of blood but what I found instead was a lot of beer. And a lot of people so tightly crowded around the bar it looked like a rugby huddle.

This "crisis" was an untappable keg. The Bartender was trying to tap a fresh keg when one of the Shit For Brains guests thought he could do a better job and he messed it all to heck, causing a fountain of beer every time he pressed to break the seal. And no matter how many times The Bartender asked him to stop, he wouldn't.

I grabbed the tap out of his hand and told him to back up, but he was drunk and belligerent and would not respond to reason so I had to resort to something I vowed I wouldn't do - I dropped an F-Bomb in public. It wasn't loud or vulgar - I mean an F-Bomb is considered vulgar, but I kept it as discrete as I could. I simply squeezed his hand as hard as I could and said very quietly but very clearly through clenched teeth, "Give me the fucking tap or I am going to take it and walk out this door and not one more drop of beer will be served tonight. Got it?"

"She's going to take the tap!!!" He shouted.

Great. NoW I was going to be mobbed and ripped to shreds.

But by the grace of God everyone stepped away from the bar and I was able to get the keg tapped, which now made me the most popular person in all the land.

"You know", I said, "The police are all over tonight with road blocks giving random sobriety tests."

I so totally made that up. But the crowd thinned and the unruly fled to their tables to sober up.

But by this point The Bartender had enough. She went to The Client to inform them she would be leaving. The Client begged, but it was too late.

The Client came in the kitchen to see if we were ok - or "had we been offended." I laughed and said, "Nothing personal, but I think this will be our last job for you."

And with that we walked out the door.

And as we approached The Van, there by the front tire was a nice big pile of vomit.

And that pretty much summed up how we felt about the night, too.

I.

Hate.

People.

I received a lovely e-mail from the webmaster over at Accidental Hedonist informing me that I have been nominated for:

The 2004 Food Blog Award in the "Best Food Blog - Humor" category.

Or Click Here

This is a really great honor. I am nominated with some amazing blogs. Thank you so much for those who nominated me and thank you to The Accidental Hedonist!

Wow.

I have been nominated for an award! And it's not even "Most Foul- Mouthed Crab of "04"! Wahoo!!!

In the last three days before Sunday's Trick I took no less than 10 phone calls from The Didn't Want To Pay For 110 Guests Lady. (For future reference and to save a little typing, we will from here on out refer to her as Mrs. 110)

I understand people have questions and I try to make myself available to their needs.

But Mrs. 110 was bothering me to the point of excessive Tums chewing. She was being nit-picky and asked the same series of questions over and over and over each time she called. I finally had to tell her that I would not be available by phone as I would be busy tricking for others but would call her if I had a question.

Her last and most persistant line of questioning had to do with my time of arrival to The Trick.

"The wedding starts at 3:00 and I assume you will want in there by 7:00 a.m."

"Right. Ok."

So as we are pulling in to the venue my cel phone rang. The Husband called to informe me Mrs. 110 had called 5 times and had also called The Partner's house in a panic. At the stroke of 12:00 she was just certain we had bailed on her and they would be without food for the wedding.

So as I rolled my first cart into the kitchen I was met with a hysterical woman.

"Oh thank Gooooooooood! I was certain you were not coming!"

"I know but it's... 1:45."

There was an awkward silence as Her Husband tapped her on the shoulder and asked to speak to her in the hall. It was clear he had lost patience with her.

As had The Bride, The Groom, and The Minister.

So we went about unpacking our wares and loading in the Cameo* when I was greated by Photographer Man.

"Oh cool! You are catering this one!"

Crap.

Photographer Man owns a photography studio with his wife and I stress the words with his wife because she is always on site with him and yet he always manages to find his way to my side and flirt with me in a way that would embarass even an aging lothario in a college campus bar.

We first met Photographer Man last Winter at a Trick and as people in The Biz do we exchanged business cards for recommendations to others. He was funny and witty and his wife was ever so charming. But he spent a lot of time in the kitchen acting as if he was being indiscreet with his camera taking candids of all the important people. When, in fact, all he was really doing was leaning over my shoulder and dropping one-liners like we were on a single's cruise to Mazatlan.

I blew it off because, frankly, I was busy and I didn't want to cause a scene. And I have found that in those situations, ignoring things like that usually make them go away.

Usually.

Not so much luck this time.

We had work to do and I wasn't giving him much time and I hoped his was just a case poor social skills in the past instead of a problem and that I wouldn't have to deal with any sort of issues on this night.

So I set about my business and before long here he was taking shots of the flowers and my displays...and me.

"Did you just take a picture of me?"

"Whatever. Put the camera down."

He laughed thinking I was being silly.

So the wedding starts and We're in the kitchen building our chilled prawn display when we hear the faint sound of a shutter clicking. The Partner sighed and said, "Oh here we go..." when Photographer Man said, "Oh those look fabulous, can I have one?"

I gave him a couple of chilled prawns hoping he would go away but instead he came closer and rubbed my arm.

HE RUBBED MY ARM.

So I am in this really awkward position of wanting to plunge his face into the bowl of cocktail sauce but trying to just play it off as not to cause a rukus.

"So where's your wife?", I asked.

"Oh she's doing shots from the stairwell."

"No, seriously. I'm serious. No more pictures. And here's the thing. Touching is not a good idea. There are sharp things in here and I would hate for you to lose a digit."

*Laugh Laugh Laugh* "Oh you're silly."

"No. I am really not. And I don't think your wife would find me silly, either."

I stood there, head tilted and eyebrow raised, while he stammered and looked at the floor. The Partner was silent, but was shaking as she was fighting terribly not to bust out in laughter.

He left the kitchen without incident when The Partner began laughing hysterically. "You should have seen the look on your face! I nearly wet myself with the whole 'raised eyebrow I will kick your ass if you do that again face'".

"What creeps me out the most is not knowing how many pictures he has of me and what he's been doing with them."

"I am, yes."

So it was time to serve the food and people were freaking pigs. I mean like 'Wearing silk and stilletos but plowing through smoked salmon like it was the last ration from The Titanic', pigs. It was insane.

But like every other Trick we got through it with a small portion of our sanity in tact. People were thrilled, the Client was ecstatic and all was on course.

It all seemed pretty harmless, really, until we were in the middle of clean-up when I was approached by The Lady in Red Guest.

"Um, excuse me? Caterer? Excuse me?"

"Well good. Can you run off and find me one. I want to bring food home."

It took me a minute to get my witts about me. I was actually being asked for a freaking doggie bag at a wedding. This woman actually wanted to take food home with her - on someone else's dime. I tried to pick my words carefully as I had an audience and The Wedding Coordinator was waiting to the right of me trying to get my attention.

So while I wanted to say was, "Would you like the promotional toy to go with your Happy Meal?", I actually said, "I am sorry, no."

The Lady in Red Guest was upset and turned away in a huff. I chuckled and shook my head when The Wedding Coordinator said, "My God. What's with people? Do you have to deal with that kind of shit all the time?"

"You have no idea.", I replied.

"Well people are wacked, that's for sure."

"Speaking of that, the reason I wanted to speak to you was because The Photographer was showing me some candids he took and he has like 10 pictures of you on his camera. What's up with that?"

Great.

*(Editor's Note: A Cameo is an insulated box that we use to transport hot foods and keep them at optimal serving temperature. It is not, in fact, the 80's R&B group with the lead singer who wears a red leather codpiece.)

The Friend Down Under wins today's big prize.

121 people showed to The Trick

In honor of him I promise to broaded my horizons in the food department and eat something gross like liver.

Ok, no.

I am totally not going to do that.

How about a round of applause, instead.

It's that time of year that brings out the worst in people.

Which is such a sad testament to mankind. Here we are in what should be the happiest time of the year and I have seen old women scowl at children and I am pretty sure the Salvation Army bell ringer told someone to kiss his ass outside of the grocery store.

I sort of thought things would be different in Costco.

Why I thought it would be different in Costco is beyond me, really. But I did.

And as usual, I was wrong.

Apparently this is the time of year where people are really intense about things like romaine hearts as I so found out when I was loading my cart full of them and made an enemy in the produce cooler.

"Do you need all of that romaine?"

"Well there won't be if people like you come here and wipe it out."

At that point I figured I had two choices; either say something sarcastic and toss my hair and storm out of the cooler, or kill her with kindness.

I am sure you know this was a difficult choice for me. But I am working on that.

"Well do you need the romaine I have in my cart?"

"Well that would be stupid - I can get my own."

Long pause and a lip bite.

"So then your issue with my taking two cases of romaine really isn't about the romaine as much as it is you being a miserable bitch?"

I tried.

Really.

Ok so what do you think the odds are that when a person drops a fork it will fall tine down?

And then if it falls tine down, what do you think the odds are that a tine will embed in the person's big toe causing major bleeding?

In this house those odds are 2:1 in favor of the fork.

Son of a bitch that hurt.

So I got a call this morning confirming numbers for this coming Sunday's trick.

"There are 110 confirmed."

"Fine. Just make it for 110 then."

I knew we should have turned this one down.

I should have known how Saturday night's Trick was going to go when I saw that decorative barbed wire.

(I managed to remain bloodless, by the way)

We weren't 20 minutes into the thing before The Bartender came storming into the kitchen to get the mop - someone spilled a tray of beer.

We knew then that this was going to be a "typical" night. And The Friend in Texas knows what I mean by "typical".

The thing is, the dynamic you have when The Bride is all of 19 and The Groom is all of 22 is a room full of drunken children. So you spend your night bobbing and weaving through throngs of stumbling fools while you try to balance trays of hot food.

And in this case, hot bean dip.

That's right I said bean dip.

The Brides' Mother wanted the placed filled with family favorites; one of them being bean dip. Bean dip has it's place - like at football parties or backyard bar-b-ques - But at a wedding? A wedding the family wants to be "elegant"?

I tried encourage something in it's place - something more appropriate for the meal at hand - but The Bride's Mother insisted that The Bride wanted bean dip because that's "her favorite snack".

Fine. What the Hell do I know.

Anyway.

It was shortly after The Great Beer Spillage that The Crabby Man came storming in the kitchen (and you know how we love that) and asked for 7-Up. I guess somewhere along his journey he assumed our kitchen was the McDonald's drive-up window because when his request for 7-up was declined, he was totally disgusted with our "lack of having what the customer wants".

Upon his dramatic exit from the kitchen, I opted to step outside for a break. I found refuge on an upside down bucket and leaned back with a big sigh and asked myself that same question I ask myself every time I do this. Is this really what I love to do???

After about 5 minutes of the bucket top introspection, I heard the giggles of a few girls around the corner sharing a cigarette, hoping their parents wouldn't come out to find them.

"Hurry up. I just saw my dad heading this way!"

GIGGLE GIGGLE GIGGLE

I couldn't help but chuckle at the irony of it all.

These people spent $5000 in food and another $1000 for liquor and there is no doubt that at some point during the evening someone was going to have to clean up liquor-induced bean dip vomit.

Say your family owns a ranch and your outfit of choice is chaps and a nice Stetson or even if you're a direct descendant of John Wayne, do you really think it's a good idea to have decorative barbed wire at a wedding reception???

My God. Do these people not know I am an accident waiting to happen?

I bet I put an eye out.

I think it should pretty much go without saying that I am no fan of spam.

Both kinds.

I don't like the kind of ground "meat" covered in the gellatenous substance and I ABSOLUTELY FREAKING HATE the kind I get in my e-mail and now - in my comments.

I had no idea such stupidity existed until I sat down about a month ago to do some site clean up and found that my comments had been spammed a totaly of 547 times. 547 TIMES!!!!!

So I deleted them and the next day do you know that I had 247 more?? THESE PEOPLE NEED REAL JOBS!

(The shouting should indicate the type of day I am having)

So, anyway.

I recieved an e-mail asking why my comments were closed on older posts. And the reason is to stop the spamming. I don't want my site to be an advertisement for Viagra, Free Cell Minutes, Free trips to Babboonistan, or anything else. So when a post is a few days old, I close the comment feature. It's nothing personal to the reader, it's just something I have to do to keep people like Big Dicks 'R Us out of my way.

That's all.

Please commence with your day.

So it's 6:00 a.m. and I am doing the typical "stand at my closet and stare" routine of picking out my clothes for the day.

"Denimn and cashmere? Wool and cotton?..."

And then I heard footsteps on my roof.

"What in the Hell???"

At first I thought I was hearing things or maybe it was crows or seagulls. But the foosteps were heavy like a human.

I froze. What the Hell should I do? The Husband was at work already so it was just me against whatever was up there.

I flipped off my bedroom light and peeked out the window.

No sign of a ladder or rope or other obvious clue. (I watch a lot of Law & Order to know what to look for)

Then I decided I needed investigate further and I did that "Charlie's Angels/Starsky & Hutch" thing where I hugged the wall, inching my way across the room. I even did the pretend gun thing where I stood in each doorway shouting, "Don't Move!"

I really do have a lot of fun when I am alone and somewhat frightened.

Anyway.

I wall-hugged it to the the fire escape door and peeked out to the alley. There were flashing lights and because of my overstimulated sense of stupidity, I pretty much assumed those lights were from a police car and what I heard was the cops chasing the bad guys over the roof tops of the city.

I pictured bags filled with cash - or drugs. Yes! It must be drugs! And I am sure there were mind-bending jumps from building to building and overweight cops sweating bullets and calling for back-up. Or maybe it was Keanu Reeves doing some cool Matrix-like moves and everything was happening in slow motion.

Or just maybe it was SANTA!!!

The footsteps stopped so I made my way across the loft to the front window. Just as I was rounding the corner to peek outside, a ladder dropped and I heard the muffled sounds of men's voices.

"Holy shit holy shit holy shit!!! Where's my phone - WHERE IS MY PHONE!"

I slid down the wall, peeking up over my shoulder to see if I could get a look at who I was dealing with. And since such a dramatic moment called for dramatic measures, I belly crawled across the kitchen floor to get the phone.

And a weapon.

~Note so self: next time The Husband drops a package of toothpicks, don't take his word that he got them all off the floor. OUCH!

I came off the floor long enough to grab a saucepan and a chef's knife. I knew paying big bucks for the All Clad would be worth it one day, that bad boy can crush a zip lock full of peppercorns and I knew it had skull fracturing capabilities.

Now, where was that phone... AHA! On the handset! (A freaking miracle in this house, just ask The Friend in Alabama.)

In one quick swipe I grabbed the phone and was back on the floor. The Plan was to call The Police, The Building Owner, and The Friend in Texas (She loves this stuff). And then keep the Chef Weapons of Destruction at the ready just in case one of the creeps tried to get in my windows.

Just as I started to dial, I noticed the red light flashing on the handset signaling I had a phone message.

And I remembered that I got home so late last night that I didn't even bother to check the machine, assuming I would take the time in the morning.

I had a funny feeling so I pushed the Remote Playback button and listened.

"Hey, it's The Building Owner. I just wanted to let you know that there's going to be a couple of guys around tomorrow to check all the lights and outlets so the buildings can be decorated for Christmas. So don't be alarmed if you hear footsteps on the roof!"

Well, damn. That information would have come in handy.

I will say that was kind of hoping for an opportunity to use the saucepan.

I could have totally taken the bastards.

Ring Ring

"Hello!"

"Because you have poor service."

*Shaking head laughing* "Call it what you want. I am not trying to be spiteful - I am booked. Plain and simple."

"Well you do that. Would you like me to get you their number?"

Damn it all to Hell this is going to be a long month.