I spent yesterday cooking dinner for 80 people. That’s right, 80. It was a fundraiser for the Nightingale School Breakfast Program, which provides breakfast to inner city kids.
Dinners like this are tricky. Even in hotels or restaurants, you need to have good people and a workflow to make things go smoothly. When you have one day and a handful of keen volunteers with varying levels of culinary and hospitality experience, it can be tricky to pull off.
It went well. But at the end of the day, I realized that it was a 14-hour shift and that my feet and back were killing me. How in the hell did I manage to do this before? I must be getting old.
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4 responses so far ↓
Kate // February 15, 2009 at 7:14 pm
What did you make?
Jose Uzcategui // February 15, 2009 at 7:42 pm
80 people? Holy crap. It doesn’t matter what you made. I’d probably go nuts pouring milk and cereal to half that crowd.
…kudos to you!
col // February 15, 2009 at 8:08 pm
kudos to you!
(my back hurts all the time, I think we’re getting old)
thewelltemperedchocolatier // February 15, 2009 at 10:49 pm
Trust me, I had a great team working with me. They were awesome.
We made:
-20 kg of roast beef
-10 kg of chicken breast
-30 kg of mashed potato
-30 kg of roasted vegetables
-36 fruit salads
-48 lemon meringue tarts
-48 fruit custard tarts
-36 English trifles
and a bunch of cheese plates.
It was fun! It’s been a while since I cooked like this – for good reason – and I had a blast.