The unmitigated gall! Send her a bill for the 'consulting fee'.

I was wondering if you could initiate a 30% up-front, non-refundable fee that would compensate for bone-heads like this?

Oh. My. God. How rude. Heck, I hope the cake blows up.

I would certainly send her a bill for the consulting fee. To cover preparation of the menu, and the cost of all your faxes, stationary, phone calls etc, while preparing said menu which she has so graciously decided to use herself.

If nothing else, it might make her feel a little bad. (We could hope, couldn't we?)

That's plain tacky. If she ever call you again, be sure to say NO!!!

Boy if that doesn't take a pair of balls the size of grapefruits!

That is such dirty pool.

Oh, she did NOT. But yeah, I'm sure she did. What a nasty wench! Definitely falls into my "how does someone think that's OK??" category.

Can't you just go and HELP her fall into the cake! (While she's wearing her best dress and her hair and makeup have just been done. . . ) Unfortunately, I think if you send her a bill a) she won't pay it and b) she'll badmouth you to all her influential friends and "you won't cook lunch in this town again."

Despite the fact that caterers are secretive, competitive, backstabbing, etc......we in our little town make sure that we share experiences like this one. Forewarned is forearmed.

At my old restaurant, during busy weekends like the AT&T, I would call over to our neighbor competitor and go over reservations. We would both gleefully delete duplicates.....people no doubt like your client. 'I am sorry, ma'am...there must be a mistake; why don't you try the Rio?' Blink, blink.

That is horrifying! You should definitely draw up a contract for the future stating that if the client pulls out of the deal after a certain date/amount of work has been put in--then they must pay 30% of the agreed upon cost for your services.

Oh my, I would be so angry!

The worst part is, 10 to 1 she meant to do this from the very beginning. That's how this kind operates.

Trips and falls on a piece of cake?....Why,I'd tell her to shove that cake up her...well nevermind...you get the picture.

IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT HIS HOLY SEND HER AN INVOICE!!! and if you were in Los Angeles, I'd insist you tell me her name... privately, of course!

She probably would not pay the bill, and would probably badmouth you, but I still think you should send one anyway. What a twit!

And yeah, I'd tell the other caterers about her, too.

That flake couldn't even tell you directly, she just left a message. Unreal.

I agree with the others that it's great to share notes.

BILL HER. BILL HER. BILL HER. You have a service contract right? Even if it was oral, it was a contract. BILL THE LADY AND BILL HER LOTS. YICHhhhhhh.

That was just wrong. Rude, tacky, dead wrong. I hope you can bill her for some of the work you put into it.

Not that you need another person telling you this, but bill the bitch!

Cake? CAKE? How about the biggest freakin chef knife in your tool kit? maybe you'd get luckey and it would land in her neck. OR if you would like to gain maximum satisfaction, stop off and pick up a spork, crash the event and drive in her neck yourself infront of everyone. Then you'll have to leave calmly, get in the car with Clamenza, flee to Italy for a while, till we call for you. Then you'll eventually be head of the family, and move operations to Lake Tahoe....wait wrong business, Spork her anyway!

Ah, the old Compliment with the Brush Off trick.

Maybe she will trip and the cake will fall on her. Now THAT would be funny

I like that when she said "going in a different direction," she meant "now that you've driven us here, we're kicking you out of the car."

Thanks everyone.

I did send her a bill. We will see what happens.

I've also made some under the table calls to spread the word. Apparently this isn't the first time she's done this.

I do take comfort in knowing a couple of the menu items can only be made with recipes that I have - and I didn't share how I make them. Or any of it, for that matter.

I was probably this woman's printer at some point...it sounds all too familiar.