Gathering Pressures: Part One

Cooking for large groups has never been my strong point. I have a tendency to bite off more than I can chew....pun intended. I break the cardinal rule of "never cook a new recipe for the first time for a dinner party" pretty much...every single time I cook for people. Past attempts at entertaining have led to very late meals, an inability to socialize with guests, wasted food from dishes I abandon at the last minute, and many, many tears.

I nearly had a nervous breakdown about mashed potatoes the first time I cooked Thanksgiving dinner. I made three appetizers, planned to make five or six side dishes, a special mulled spiked cider, turkey, rolls, the whole shebang.  Sounds great, right?  It would've been had I known to do ANYTHING in advance. I think I did a few things the night before but...yeah...not nearly as much as I should have. So when dinner was already an hour and a half late and I hadn't even started the mashed potatoes (and I mean wash, peel, chop, boil water, cook, mash, season, etc.), I broke down. I literally crumbled into a pathetic, apron-clad sobbing mess. Fortunately, my dad came to the rescue, consoled me, made me laugh and took over mashed potato duty. My mom and sister were already busy trying to finish the deviled eggs that were meant to be served two hours earlier but weren't because I didn't even have the eggs hard boiled before people showed up. Seriously. What was I thinking?!

Needless to say I learned a lot with that first dinner party (but not enough to not be an hour late to Thanksgiving this year because I completely underestimated the time it would take to make a Celery Root and Squash Gratin with Walnut-Thyme Struesel...for the first time. See? Told you I never learn). Oh, and did I mention I had never cooked for more than two people before that first Thanksgiving? I'm very ambitious...sometimes to my own detriment.  There were only eight people there but, for me, two to eight was a huge leap.  This was obviously my biggest concern when I look back at the menu I planned.  Who in their right mind would think making five or six complicated side dishes for eight people was a good idea? Me, apparently.

Subsequent dinner parties have ranged in success from "the timing was better" and "the meat wasn't too burned" to "I think everyone really enjoyed the risotto" and "that pan gravy was fantastic!"  I am by no means an accomplished dinner party thrower but my cooking and planning skills have certainly improved over the years.  I've even had fleeting moments of real kitchen confidence. So where does one semi-skilled, kinda experienced, sort of home cook go from here? To catering my sister-in-law's bridal shower of course!  Ain't no thang.

I was flattered and excited when my mother-in-law, Beth, asked me if I'd be interested in putting together an Italian-themed lunch for Megan's shower. It was scheduled for mid-July at a charming, old farmhouse that had been converted to a tea room in Canton, Michigan, which is only about 20 minutes away from where I live. I didn't know how many guests were expected but I estimated around 15 to 20.  That was a little daunting seeing as how I still had only cooked for a maximum of eight people since that chaotic first Thanksgiving. But, I had a little more than two months to plan and was up to the challenge, so I got to work.

Anyone that knows me or has ever gone out to dinner with me knows that I have a bit of a problem making decisions.  Not because I'm picky, but because I want to eat everything.  If I'm reading a menu and something strikes my fancy, you can be assured the next dish described will have me drooling even more.  Every consecutive menu item I read will have an exponential effect on my salivary glands until I eventually come full circle to that first thing that sounded so good and convince myself I should just leave because nothing I get is going to make me happy.

Of course I don't leave because at this point I'm so hungry that the idea of leaving is equivalent to torture...plus it would be rude...and probably highly inconvenient.  What if I rode with someone else to the restaurant? They probably don't want to leave so I'm stuck having to sit in the car until they're finished and then have to deal with the disapproving looks and silent questions of my mental stability on the shame-filled ride home. Umm...no thanks. So I mop up my puddle of drool with my crisp folded napkin and order. And, if I'm out to eat with Jason and my sister, I order, second guess my decision, convince Jason to hunt down the waitress, and change my order to what my sister ordered. And, if we're eating at Gratzi in Ann Arbor and I wait too long to decide to change my order and hunt down the waitress, they'll bring me both meals I ordered and I'll feel really stupid.

You're probably wondering where all of this is going. Well...if I have this much trouble deciding what I want to order at a restaurant, imagine my dismay at choosing recipes to form a cohesive and delicious menu for a very important event for a very special person with the only factor narrowing my focus being Italian. Oh, and with some sort of vegetarian option. Before long I was knee deep in recipe ideas and discarded menus I was hanging on to "just in case" and I realized I had to have some other constraints. No sooner did the wish form than the constraints came raining down from the catering constraint rain cloud. As plans have a tendency of doing, our bridal shower plans changed...completely.

You see, Megan and her now husband, John, live in Arizona. The wedding and reception took place in Arizona at a beautiful church and country club with picturesque mountain views. In fact most of the wedding events took place in Arizona but Megan still wanted to travel back to her home state of Michigan to make it easier for friends and family to take part in some of the wedding traditions such as dress shopping, bridal showers, etc. And she did just that. We shopped for her gown, cried when we saw her in it, laughed at the ridiculous bridesmaid dresses we tried on and exuded glamorous confidence in the bridesmaid dress she chose. They were lovely visits. Unfortunately, Megan's planned trek to Michigan in July for her shower had to be canceled, but for good reason.  She was starting a new job!  We still had a wonderful bridal shower in Michigan.  But it had to be planned in two weeks, not two months, which was definitely not enough time to put together the event we were planning. Not to worry though.  I was about to take on a much greater challenge: a bridal shower...in Arizona.

There is way too much to this experience to squeeze it all into one post, so you will be reading the rest of the story in one or two more (depending on how carried away I get). But I will leave you with a description of my newly designed challenge complete with constraints galore.  In a nutshell:

Plan an Italian vegetarian dinner menu (the shower was now planned for 6:30) for 30 people, cook everything in your sister-in-law's kitchen (which you've never seen) with little to no knowledge of the kitchen equipment available and transfer everything to the apartment complex clubhouse where the shower will be held.  Once at the clubhouse, you will have access to a fridge and a sink but there will be no oven or microwave...aka you better make sure the food you make tastes good at room temperature or cold because there's no way you're reheating it (we had already decided against chafing dishes and sterno in an effort to save a little money).

Suddenly, the dinner with too many possibilities had rapidly become Dinner: Impossible and I needed to start channeling my inner Robert Irvine.  Robert would never let a challenge get the best of him. He would pick up a cast iron skillet with those bulging arms of his and cook an 18-course meal for 100 people over an open fire from ingredients foraged from the surrounding area like it was just another day at the office. Certainly, I could handle cooking in someone else's kitchen.

And handle it I did, although there were definitely moments of sheer panic. To calm myself I just closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and pretended Robert was giving me a good old-fashioned "keep your chin up kiddo" hug that chefs are always giving each other. Yeah, when chefs aren't cooking they're hugging. I know. It was news to me too. But, it's kind of sweet don't you think?

The rush of the kitchen dies down and every cook drops his or her spatula and embraces their neighbor for a nice 5-minute hug and, if their lucky, maybe even an Eskimo kiss or two. Those imaginary hugs from Robert are what kept me going in the face of catering terror. In my mind I was being enveloped by an over-sized Yorkshire pudding...hard and crusty on the outside...warm, gooey and British on the inside. I realize this may seem a little unorthodox but every chef has a way of dealing with the inevitable pressures and challenges of cooking. Being hugged by a humungous savory baked good to which I give human characteristics just works for me ok? Don't judge.