Catering

Catering is a noun, a grueling noun; I define catering as the sport of serving food and beverage outside of the restaurant setting and recommended only for the young, strong and healthy restaurant athletes.

For me it began at Lakeway and this initiation into the world of catering definitely left a bad taste in my mouth because it was an extreme sport with so many transfers for each and every item from land to water and then from one water vessel to the next water vessel and then all in reverse to get back home.  The biggest calorie burning catering event was on the Marine Yacht Lakeway which was booked as a sunset cruise with full bar service and food service ranging anywhere from light hors d’oeuvres to a 3-course meal all on a 65-foot boat that had no kitchen, so you had to take everything including any equipment needed.  The food, beverages and catering equipment varied according to the size of the group and their planned menu.  It all started in the main kitchen, where I began the catering process by packing up everything in bus tubs, boxes or ice chests to get ready for the haul.  Now follow along as I go through the setup procedure and see if you can keep count of how many times I picked up each box, bus tub, ice chest, etc.  First I loaded all equipment, food and beverages into the kitchen elevator taking it the elevator down to the loading dock, then moving it all onto the loading dock, from there I loaded it into the catering van and drove it to the boat ramps, where I unloaded everything onto the boat ramp, from there I lifted it onto a beached pontoon boat and drove the pontoon boat to the dock where the M.Y. Lakeway was moored, after I tied the pontoon to the dock I then proceeded to unload the supplies onto the dock next to the boat and lastly lift it from the dock and up onto the M.Y. Lakeway boat.  Lost track, well the answer is 7 pick-ups and carries.  Once on the boat there was much more moving around of all the equipment and food to get my new “home for the evening” arranged just so and to get the service areas ready to roll.  At the completion of the catering we had to do the cleanup and this was a repeat of the “getting ready” just in reverse and now hauling dirtied pots, pans, platters, etc. all to be washed in the terra firma dish room.  The reason I went through this long explanation is to show you how physically demanding catering is.

While running the Wineskin Restaurant in Aspen we did lots of offsite events and notice I now call them “offsite events” because catering has such a bad connotation for the seasoned restaurant worker.  We did all types of catering, from Jimmy Buffett’s bachelor party to the American Orthopedic Party to a 3-day gourmet horse trip.  This event called for 6 additional pack horses just for the transport of the beer.  The more bizarre the event, the more we charged so at the end of the day we really loved the weird and wild.

Hudson’s did a lot of catering, it was really great money and refilled our bank account, which was very important in the early days of the restaurant.  Our first catering job was way off site, it took place on a wild game ranch in Brenham, Texas.  The owner of the ranch made his wealth in oil and California real estate.  He hired us to cater the wedding party for his daughter and nothing was too expensive.  Our caravan left the Hill Country at the crack of dawn.  We arrived at the ranch in the early light of the morning and as we were winding towards the property, I noticed plenty of active cattle pastures and magic mushrooms growing out of the cow patties.  I pulled the caravan over and proceeded to jump the barbed wire fence to harvest the mushrooms.  A bull from across the pasture decided to charge towards me and my harvesting came to a halt.  I jumped the fence to safety.  I was 35 and fearless and maybe a little crazy, they go hand in hand, fearless and crazy. I had harvested just enough mushrooms for my silly group to keep it silly, but sadly not enough to take home.  By the time we arrived at the ranch, the mushrooms had begun to take effect and the entire crew was laughing at stupid stuff.  There was a double gate 50 yards apart from each other to keep the wild game contained, but a clever Ostrich ran alongside our vehicle to direct us and simultaneously amuse us, or at least that is the way I remember it.  One of our waiters was being a “negative nelly” and said “I don’t see any wild game”, at that very moment a dozen giraffes galloped in front of us, not another negative word was spoken.  There was an abundance of game I had never seen before and a veterinarian living on site to make sure all the animals stayed healthy.  We did our “Hudson’s” thing serving venison, quail, rabbit etc. which we served ala carte.  There were only 75 guests, so all in all it was a fairly simple affair.  When it came time for the bill the father of the bride declared it was the best meal he had ever had and proceeded to hand me a signed blank check and said to fill it in.  Rule number 1, you never give a caterer a blank check. The restaurant could have used an extra infusion of cash, but I filled it out for the amount we agreed upon with a little extra for the staff.  I blamed my uninvited integrity on the mushrooms.  We must have done a great job, damn, if I could remember, it must have been the mushrooms!

One of the first employees of Dell employed me to cater a party every year.  They had a great ski in, ski out house in Snowmass that I used this yearly catering event as barter for the use of the house.  The going rate was $40,000 per week.  Robert DeNiro had stayed there the week before us. I always said I would not return to Colorado until I could do it with style.  This mountain chalet was style!

Mike Reese and I became fast friends through the restaurant and my cooking schools at the house.  When Mike asked me to cater his daughter’s wedding, I knew it had to be extra special.  He is a talented designer and along with his wife Pam they built outrageous airplanes for some of the wealthiest people in the world, so I knew everything had to be perfect.  We only closed the restaurant once in 31 years, but we soon realized that a proper number of employees for the catered job would leave no one to staff the restaurant so that was the one time we shut her down. There were 350 guests in a fancy Canterbury style tent with a large kitchen tent attached in the rear.  It was ala carte, so we set up 2 identical production lines to produce the food and plate it up.  A big wedding with big name entertainment has lots of potential problems and that’s why they hired an experienced planner and with lots of planning and worrying and preplanning and pre-worrying, everything came off perfectly.  Any problems were addressed before they became large and thus, they were not a problem.  We did many catering events for Pam and Mike following the wedding, however none as grand as the wedding.

Throughout the 32 years of Hudson’s, we catered lots of events on and off the grounds of the restaurant, we soon realized that if we did a good job it became positive advertising.

The recipe below is one of our most requested recipes.  It is the corn pudding.  It holds well and is very sturdy.  You can add cooked bacon, boar, chicken anything to customize it. This recipe is the base, just sweet corn.  It is vegetarian, add sun dried tomatoes or mushrooms to keep it vegetarian the list is endless.  It has lots of baking powder, so you are not making a mistake. The baking powder is what makes it airy and light

Corn Pudding
There are 3 different mixes, dry mix, wet mix and veggie mix.  Prepare the 3 mixes separately and then combine all 3 mixes before pouring them into your casserole and baking.

Ingredients
Dry Mix
1 1/4 cups AP flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne powder

Wet Mix
6 large eggs
1 stick melted butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 8-ounce can cream style corn

Veggie Mix
1 medium poblano pepper, ¼” diced
1 pound sweet corn
1 medium red bell pepper, ¼” diced
1 jalapeño, ¼” diced

Method
Butter a medium casserole.

Pre heat oven to 350. If you are using a convection oven pre heat to 325 and cook 10 minutes less.

Prepare all 3 mixes separately.
Stir all 3 mixes together and pour into the casserole.  The mix may vary from 1” to 2” in depth when poured into the casserole.  If it’s 2” deep add 10 minutes to the cooking time.  It should be an even golden brown on top when ready.  It should be firm in the middle.