Sweaty, Tired, and Cranky

I haven't posted in a long time. Work has been very crazy, hectic, and frustrating. I'm tired and cranky. We had a catering event for 60 people that the owner knew about for well over a month. The event was on Tuesday but we weren't given a menu until Wednesday, 6 days before the event. Actually it is more like 4 days because we are closed on Mondays and Sundays we do not do any production, we just get out all the stuff for the display case to be purchased. 4 days before the event a catering company was not even booked yet to rent serving ware and stuff like that, supplies or food was not ordered, and we had no recipes. Keep in mind we are a pastry kitchen too. We put out tarts, cakes, and baked goods. We are not prepared to do savory items. The event called for 16 different canapes and 3 different types of pastries. So finally on Thursday after work recipes were given to us to try. This is fucking crazy because there is no time to be testing shit out. 2 days is not enough time to be testing, tweaking, and producing 16 canapes for 60 people. Definitely not when you have your own daily production to do. Especially when you don't have the ingredients to make them because they haven't been ordered. We didn't even know if the recipes are going to work or if they even tasted good. At that point we didn't have time for trial and error and tweaking. We should have been all prepped already. And you would think that the owner would simplify but nope she wanted everything beyond simple. I'm a big fan of fancy but when you are doing something so last minute and you are unprepared and running out of time it might be a good idea to go with something you've done several times and you know it can be done and will taste good. *Saturday night I get a messsage about freezing some compote (I made in case one of the canapes didn't work out and we needed an emergency back up) then something about layering some cheese somehow and some kind of strawberry tuile! Sunday we don't do production, Monday we are closed, Tuesday is the event. There is no time to be freezing something and drying something out to make a tuile! Crazy* Ok so back to Wednesday night, I was smart enough to go online and do some research and I came up with some of my own recipes to try on Thursday. I figured it was better then waiting for her to give us the recipes because I know when shit hits the fan all fingers will be pointing at us, not her. The recipe she gave us for for corn blinis came out like shit. They were dry, eggy, and hard as a rock. Mine came out much better so we tried it with cornmeal and without and told her one was her recipe and the other was mine. She, of course, doesn't even try the one we said was mine and said she liked hers. If she only knew that they were both mine and her recipe sucked. She didn't even prepare the cook for the things he had to do for the event. He was slammed on Tuesday with this huge to-do list. By Tuesday we had done everything that was asked of us. Our prep work was all done and we were ahead of schedule but I knew that shit would hit the fan because she didn't the food that she was in charge of. She was supposed to go in on Monday to prepare some of the savory foods. What time do you think she went in? 8:30pm on Monday night when the party is on Tuesday. It was ridiculous. Tuesday was a crazy day at work. I went in at 4am. Things that should have been already prepared were being made on the fly. We didn't have glasses for the panna cotta until 6:30pm and the party started at 6pm so pretty much it was made a la minute. Have you ever heard of panna cotta being made a la minute? Ridiculous right!? Meat balls were being rolled at 7:30pm in our kitchen and one of the girls who was waitressing the event had to drive back and pick them up and then cook them on site. Really really ridiculous and it didn't have to be like that. Catering a party requires planning and prep work.

So all of last week we were prepping for that event and getting our usual stuff done. I worked 11 to 11 1/2 hours a day which isn't awful but I had a lot of things to take care of after work. I had a present to shop for, made Dora the Explorer cookie lollipops for my two year old niece's bday, an appt in the city that I was almost late for so I had to go straight after work sweaty and dirty in my batter and flour stained work pants, a birthday dinner party the next day, some personal things that I needed to take care of, and two days of the fancy food show which was awesome. I was running around like a madwoman. Going into work sucked today. It's like waking up after a storm and seeing the disaster it has caused. You just have to take a deep breathe and start the clean up. Our kitchen was a mess this morning and we were depleted of a lot of our mise en place which needed to be made today. I'm sweaty, cranky, and tired. This is the first chance I'm getting to sit down and check my email and post something. I'm glad its over and hopefully this week will be a bit calmer.