Catering

Forgot to write about the catering job I did two weekends ago -- it was an auction item I had donated for the McKinley annual auction. They set the bidding too high, so no one bid, but luckily the woman who bid last year contacted me a few days later and asked if Dan and I would do the pig roast again. Of course! I said. She agreed to cover our food bills and Dan's gas getting up here from South Carolina and donate $500 to the school.

So, on Friday, Sept. 18, I left the house mid-day to do the shopping for the event. Then I got home late in the afternoon and started the process of cooking black beans and sofrito for 18 adults and 21 kids; preparing Cuban bread with butter, parmesan cheese and minced parsley, and marinating several packages of chicken in mojito sauce and cut-up oranges. I was up past 1 a.m. by the time I finished, cleaned up and decompressed.

The next morning I was up at 8, ran out to a New Orleans bakery to buy beignets for Dan (I thought he deserved them, driving up and essentially giving up a lucrative catering gig to work this fundraiser), got back to say goodbye to Drew and Rachel, who left for a Pew Research Center picnic. Then Dan and I spent most of the afternoon preparing the pig at Holly's house (she was the one who bought the auction item) as well as paella in Dan's monster-sized paella pan -- we did shrimp, chicken, sweet peppers and rice, and it was a HIT. Dan loved the black beans and sofrito; when he tried it before we brought it over to Holly's, he pronounced, "I ain't worried about this dinner tonight," which was a big relief.

And it turned out great! Very few people had the bread, which I will remember for next time -- but they loved the paella and the pig. Holly mixed us some cocktails so I was quite relaxed by the time the whole thing was over and I had finished cleaning most of our equipment and lugging everything back to Dan's truck, which left my legs extremely sore the next day. It was totally worth it.