I catered five large Holiday parties in December. Interestingly enough, four of these dinners were exactly the same!!! One man threw four different parties throughout the month for different reasons. There was Roasted Turkey, Holiday Ham, Mashed Potatoes, Bourbon Sweet Potatoes, Green Beans with Caramelized Onions, Stuffing, Gravy, appetizers and two different Slab Pies for dessert. That's a LOT of food! At the end, he was happy, so that's good.
My Mom, sister Michele and nephew Dylan drove up from LA for Christmas. My sister Corie and her husband Stu drove down from the Portland area to spend Christmas here as well. Although family time can be both wonderful and frustrating at the same time, it was nice having everyone here.
Right around Christmas, the owner of Creme Cafe here in Reno approached me about coming back to work for her. She offered more money and regular hours, plus a chance to do menu development, build the baking portion of the business and help with catering. We are also talking about offering what we call "The Supper Club". We would offer monthly dinners, much like the Farm-to-Table dinner I do each year in September. Moving Creme Cafe across the street to a larger facility was much harder than she thought it was going to be so she was feeling overwhelmed. Hence the call for help. In the two-three weeks since I have been back, business has picked up, I am posting on Facebook for the cafe and am developing menu options for the catering we do. A lot of work! I've been enjoying it though. Today I went in for a couple of hours so I could bake cookies for Sup (couldn't add the German symbol that changes the pronounciation from sup-like supper to soup), a wholesale account she has for baked goods. I made Cinnamon Apple Turnovers while I was there. I tucked 6 inch squares of puff pastry into large muffin tins, then filled them will chopped apples tossed with brown sugar, cinnamon, a squeeze of lemon, a pinch of salt and a small amount of cornstarch, folded the corners inward, brushed the pastry with an egg wash, then baked them at 400 degrees F for about 20 minutes. Once they were cooled, I drizzled them with a confectioner's sugar glaze. Voila! Done!
And now, in only a week-I will be flying to Maui for a two week private chef job. A rough life, I know, but someone has to do it, lol. I'll be posting more during that time (with more free time there than I've had in a while, lol). How cool is that? :-)
I'll also post more from the adventures at Creme Cafe so you can come along on the journey. Welcome to 2015!!
