Gourmet Getaways

I was a lucky host chef for the Tourism Walla Walla event Gourmet Getaways. Eight visitors to our fair city (town, hamlet) stayed two nights at a bed and breakfast of their choice and were participants in a cooking class of Spanish tapas and paella. Basel Cellars provided the yummy wine of which I was happy to sample as well.

Gourmet Getaways ran from mid February to late March in various restaurants. Other host institutions included Brasserie 4, Whitehouse Crawford, WWCC Jay Entrekin, and Someone's in the Kitchen, among others. My class was held in the enology center's kitchen since my commercial kitchen is not the best place in the world to host wine tasting and to sit down and have a meal.

The guests were super fun. A couple of ladies from Puget Sound (one of whom makes a giant seafood paella once a year from her frozen crab stock), and three siblings who grew up in Walla Walla and now live elsewhere in Washington, only to have their mother suck them back with Christmas gifts that require them to return home. And the siblings brought their significant others as well. Eight guests and me. A most relaxed and pleasant bunch. We had a great time.

Menu:

Chilled mussels in their shell with cucumber mignonette

Arancini, cheese stuffed saffron risotto balls and sun dried tomato dip
Sherry and garlic chicken wings

Paella, chicken, spanich chorizo, mussels, clams, shrimp

Cheers

Showcase (raw and uncensored)

Last week we did the Showcase Dinner. I still am a bit confused as to what Showcase is all about. I 'think' it is the coming out party for the WW Fair Court and a skit of some kind. I was more concerned with feeding 260 some guests than trying to figure out what was happening out front. Despite my cluelessness as to the proceedings, a good time seemed to be had by all.

Homestead Catering did this party for the last umpteen years, so the adjustment to our food may have come as a bit of a shock to regular Showcase attendees. Not a jarring shock, more like a quizical "I haven't seen that before" kind of a shock. Needless to say it was the largest full meal/service event we have taken on, and we presented ourselves quite well.

Menu:

Herbed prime rib, horseradish cream, and au jus

Rosemary chicken and garlic cream

Twice baked stuffed yukon gold potatoes

Orzo pasta salad, sun dried tomato dressing, red peppers, golden garlic, whole leaf parsley, toasted almonds

Whole leaf caesar salad

Blanched asparagus and lemon extra virgin olive oil

La Brea ciabatta and baguettes

Here are the comments from Cory the lady chairperson of the whole event (raw and uncensored). Being our first time with this group I asked her for comments both positive and negative.

"Positive side: Overall the meat was a hit....we have received "that was a great meal" from several and they wanted the name of the caterer....and did not hear one comment on no salad plate...that was good....

"On the negative side--a couple of things: the Caesar salad presentation (they like it cut up) , the cold rice salad and cold asparagus --"some" expected it to be hot.... I repeat..."some".... I loved the rice salad!!! Towards the end of serving...you ran out of potatoes (hard to monitor when people over plate)..... "some" ...repeat "SOME"....said the whole meal was not warm.

All & all .... of the 265 attending....approximately 240 completely enjoyed the whole meal.....and raved about it. Like my staff...and myself...we loved it...refreshing and great flavor. Look forward to working with you and your staff again..... Cory"

I wish we would have done two things differently 1) chop the caesar, I love whole leaf caesar salad, but from this point forward they are going to be cut up unless a client specifies otherwise 2) we made just over 300 stuffed potatoes (but they were smaller in size), and when they came out of the oven I thought "uh oh, those look too good" and sure enough we ran out right at the end. We need at least one and a half per person because they really are too good.

Cheers

Referrals

A prospective client asked for a couple of references yesterday. This prospective party is really similar to a dinner we did last Fall. So I sent the e-mail address, and in hunting down the address I came across the thank you letter from the Fall dinner. I didn't post it at the time because... well, its a bit... umm, effusive in its praise. But re-reading it made me smile recalling the dinner we did, and why not post an over the top thank you? Not everything in life need be measured and calculated.



Dear John,
OMG! You did a FABULOUS job! Everyone ranted and raved for the rest of the week-end about the food...and the details/essence of every dish....."the tomatoes! the vinegrette! folks that typically aren't fans of polenta LOVED yours! the lamb was perfect...and the food was hot! the ratatouille! the appies!" John, things flowed so nicely for our casual group. I got to really enjoy myself as a host. Bottom line....you took care of me and my guests beautifully! And dear Morgan, so helpful.
I found you via Google and your blog. The images and copy of your blog just spoke to me. I am so grateful for your professionalism, talent and gentle demeanor. I can hardly wait to recommend you to someone from my world here on Bainbridge Is/Seattle area.
Your work is so about "making memories" in peoples lives. What a mantra to guide you through your life. We live in such a wild world these days...what will tomorrow bring? No matter what, our dear friends and my dear husband received a gift of friendship, love and celebration...and you played a big part. Thankyou from the bottom of my heart!


With great fondness,
Debbie and birthday boy, Mike



See a bit over the top, but we gladly take it.



Cheers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(see, even I can get a bit carried away sometimes)

Palmares

Palmares is a cycling term meaning a list of great accomplishments. Our version of palmares.

A note from Cheryl in Dayton regarding the buffet dinner we did last month. We have been to Dayton twice now in our two and a half years of business. Hopefully we will return many times over.

"Thanks so much, John. It was just wonderful. People raved about the food. I was trying to find my checkbook when Traci said you would bill me. Feel free to do that by email. I called Traci this morning to thank her. Would you please thank Nick for me and let him know there is a gratuity coming. I’ll send it along with my payment.Many thanks again, and several people have already inquired about your catering service, so I bet you’ll get some more business from others down the road."

Best,
Cheryl

Cheers

Summer Vacation

I was a junior high/high school science teacher in my previous life/career. When the family and I headed North from California I got the crazy idea to cook for a living (more like enacted, I had the ‘got’ part a long time prior). I liked teaching and was pretty darn good at it, but the siren call of the sauté pan was too much to resist.

I loved summer vacation, as do all teachers. There was a saying that the bad teachers really liked to laugh at “what are the three best reasons to teach?… June, July, and August” In the catering world we are just ending “June, July, and August” and the real work begins again. Oddly enough, during this ‘Summer Vacation’ my previous life has resurrected itself; I am teaching two classes for the culinary program at the junior college. It is a kick in the pants to teach what I love (my wife says the thrill has more to do with talking to/at a captive audience than the teaching part).

Here are my students for the quarter. Six individuals I get to mold and influence (hopefully for the good!). They have made tremendous progress in only six weeks. This week in a five hour class they produced:

• 5 gallons of veal stock
• 3 gallons of roast chicken stock
• Two versions of French tomato soup
• French onion soup
• Asian vegetable soup
• Two different chicken and tortilla soups
• Three versions of béarnaise sauce
• Four versions of avgolemono (Greek lemon sauce similar to hollandaise)
• And three cut fingers.

Pretty impressive! Cheers.

It's that time of year again. Time to start working again (albeit very casually until the weddings hit). We did two small things this week, a hospital luncheon and a drop off dinner for the school district, and have a couple of mid-sized buffets next week. Below is the note from our new friends at the Walla Walla School District.

"Tracy,

I want to thank you and GRAZE for a delicious meal last night. Everything was perfect - presentation, taste, clean up. We will certainly use GRAZE again for future events. - Betsy, WW Public Schools"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The wife and five year old boy are in Portland this weekend visiting friends and family. It got me thinking about our Fall trip to Portland and the beautiful farmer's market dinners we cooked up at K&L's house. I can hardly wait till May for the Walla Walla Farmer's Market to start back up.

A saute of heirloom cherry tomatoes, fresh cayenne peppers, garlic, and basil. That weekend was my first experience with a padron pepper, a small mild green Spanish pepper. We got an order at Lovely Hula Hands, quick fried with extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, and a few cherry tomatoes. I was smitten... we all were. Found the grower at the farmers market but they were all sold out (they did have fresh coco beans though, and that my friends was a very good thing, which made a great accompaniement to the fish, this rambling has got to stop)

An about to be roasted wild mushroom and potato gratin, no cream, chicken stock, butter, herbs, covered for the first roasting and uncovered for a bit of caramelizing. Yummy.

Cheers

Welcome to the Family

We are proud to announce the lastest addition to the Graze Catering Family. Tracy Hartwig has been added as our event manager.


Tracy managed Homestead Catering for 20 plus years. She has a tremendous amount of experience with groups large and small. The addition of Tracy gives us a greater ability to handle smaller luncheons (a service we have rarely provided).


If you would like to contact Tracy she can be e-mailed at tracy@grazeevents.com or 509-529-7354.

Cheers

Palmares

Palmares is a cycling term meaning a list of great accomplishments. Our version of palmares. A note from Erika and Steve Lessard regarding their wedding reception.

"A belated but very sincere thank you for doing the great food for our wedding. You guys did a terrific job, and it was also just a pleasure to get to know you. You're a great guy (now I am blushing).

We'll be seeing you around I know - but till then, best of everything! Thanks again so much"

The Lessards

Cheers

Pizza Love

My first kitchen job was at Gina's Ristorante in Southern California. I was the dishwasher and made the few pizza orders that accompanied the family style pasta dinners. For a short time I was the dough maker at Pizza Hut in Davis California. My first job at a good restaurant, Paragary's in Sacramento, was making hand tossed wood oven pizzas. My wife and I met there, and she says she fell in love with me because the flour dust on my forearms made me look so... manly.

Our son turned five the other day. So we did what any parent would do, threw a birthday party, and did what any restaurant type people would do, offered up lots of food and drink for the adults. Our 1930's oven managed to crank out 16 beautiful pizzas in just under an hour.

Sam's Five Year Old Birthday Menu

- Cheese Pizza

- Pepperoni Pizza

- Pepperoni and Sausage Pizza

- Spanish Chorizo, Torpedo Red Peppers, Cilantro, Sriracha Pizza

Cheers

Palmares

Palmares is a cycling term meaning a list of great accomplishments. Our version of palmares. A thank you from Janet regarding their wedding at Three Rivers Winery.

"John,

We want to thank you for catering our wedding on October 18th. We had a great time. Thanks to your production. You set a beautiful classy table. The food was luscious, everyone commented on how much they loved the meal. It was the perfect day!

Larnie and Janet"

Cheers