Catering for a Crowd

[NancyH]

This past weekend, my husband Bob and I catered Hospitality for about 150 people at a Regional Gathering ("RG") held by a social club we belong to. We did not invent all of these methods ourselves, but the expansion of Hospitality at our gatherings from chip and dip affairs to full blown meals has evolved with the help of many of our members who love food (and who are very intelligent and creative).

For the first time this weekend, I tried to photodocument our doings (which is extremely difficult when you are the person in charge) for your amusement. The name of the event was Hieronymus Basch and the theme was surreality. The event is a social event and a fund raiser for the local Mensa group scholarship fund.

First - the cooking! Bob and I worked for weeks to prepare and freeze many of the food items you are about to see. I also worked the sales to obtain beverages and snack foods at the best price, and piled the products up in my living room. In my basement, a supply of equipment including chafing dishes, roasters, coffee urns, and serving implements, awaited the big weekend.

Next - moving out/in, from our home in an eastern suburb of Cleveland to Lorain County Ohio, and the hotel where this event will take place, on Thursday. A crew of volunteers and a U-Haul are employed to make this happen.

Between Thursday evening and Friday morning, the Prep Room is set up in a hotel sleeping room that has had most of the furniture removed:

Classroom tables are stacked to give us storage for food - snacks, produce, ingredients, breads, etc.

The hotel supplies us with 6 small refrigerators; some of our gatherings actually rent 2 full size fridges for a weekend.

Three butane stoves will be our "cooktop" for reheating soups and sauces.

A similar set up, with a single Iwatani high powered burner and an electric bucket warmer

(an idea I got from an EGullet post) are set up in my sleeping room next door, for reheating Pierogie on Friday and for cooking 12 pounds of pasta on Saturday. It is necessary to do this because we are already planning to run an 18 quart electric roaster and coffee urns in the main prep room; one more electrical device will overload the circuits and pop the breaker. The bucket warmer is necessary because even with the high btu output of the Iwatani, the stove is not enough when we start with 16 qts of water and need to keep recovering the boil after each batch of food is cooked. The bucket warmer gets us to the boil and keeps us there!

 

As Friday afternoon draws near, cans of pop and beer are placed in bathtubs in the sleeping rooms adjacent to the main serving room (over a plastic liner); the tubs are then filled with ice to chill the beverages and keep them chilled.

Snacks are set out in the main serving room - bowls of chips, crackers and candies, as well as cheese cubes and chopped veggies (ready to eat from a local purveyor). A hotdog rollergrill is set up in one of the auxiliary rooms. Volunteers roll in with brownies and cookies they have baked, to be put out on the sweets table. Long time member Robert shows up with a 5 gallon Igloo of home made punch that tastes delicious (and goes wonderfully with rum). A keg of microbrew from Rocky River Brewing Co. arrives and is set up, along with wine and malt beverages.

And then, we get to full tilt re-heating and prepping a buffet dinner spread for about 130 people. My "sous chef" arrives from Cincinnati and begins heating three soups on the burners pictured above (which, unfortunately, I did not get pictures of). Her contribution is "Basched Potato Soup", which is a big hit. I offer Squashed Soup (made from assorted winter squashes) and Soft Construction with Boiled Beans, which is actually from an Emeril recipe for Chicken, Bean and Bacon Soup that is most delicious. The soups are served in crock pots.

Next up are two cold main dish salads, and a salad bar. This Spinach Cous-Cous Salad was prepared with a recipe inspired by Linda and Fred Griffith:

The salad bar set up is rather ingenious - I wish I had thought of this!

I neglected to get a photo of "The Concert in the Deviled Eggs", but they were lovely.

The hot buffet began with "Bob's Surreal Sausage Spot" - my husband has had way too much time on his hands since he retired, and thanks to Ruhlman and Polcyn, has been playing with his food with delicious results.

In order to get maximum bang for our budget buck, he sized them to fit 1/2 a hot dog bun.

No photo - these were devoured before I could get my camera!

Interestingly, the vegetarian sausage loaves were devoured!

We did not make these pockets of goodness - the Church Ladies in Parma supply them. One of our members made the onions and sauerkraut accompaniments.

These yummy buns were made at Koko Bakery in Cleveland's Chinatown, and are highly recommended.

These were inspired by a RecipeGullet recipe that called for beef; turkey really works well with the peanut butter!

Unfortunately, I did not get a photo of the featured dessert, which was three crock pots of Chocolate Mess - a delicious combination of chocolate cake mix, chocolate pudding powder, oil, eggs, sour cream and chocolate chips, which is allowed to cook in the crock pot at low setting for about 5 hours - delicious with strawberries, caramel sauce and whipped cream!

On Saturday and Sunday mornings, my faithful sous-chef Virginia served up a Continental Breakfast of Fruit Salad, Cold Cereal, Bagels, Breads & Spreads, Muffins, Yogurt and, Saturday, 5 dozen Dunkin Donuts and 2 boxes of Munchkins - all of which disappeared before lunch on Saturday!

Saturday Lunch was the Surreal Pasta Meal. We started with 12 pounds of assorted shapes, sizes and colors of pasta, and it wasn't enough! We had over 150 people in the house when we served lunch.

I offered meat and vegetarian options to accompany the pasta. First, the meat:

I created these meat shapes using cookie cutters!

I was amazed at how popular the vegetarian items were. I made around 26 pounds of ground meat into meatballs, and have several pounds left. I made about 120 eggplant balls, and they all disappeared!

The secret ingredient in my tomato sauce: sundried tomatoes!

Chef Dominic, owner and executive chef of Carrie Cerino's in North Royalton, was kind enough to teach me how to make his Mama's White Sauce. It holds together in the chafing dish for about an hour from the time it is fully melted.

The hot buffet was accompanied by surreal bread created and baked for us by tino27 (Tom Noe):

The bread consisted of one strand of roasted red pepper and black peppercorn bread and another strand of basil pesto bread. The bread was a huge hit! And thank goodness, because we ran out of pasta. I grabbed the leftover cous-cous salad from the night before and heated it, so there would still be pasta on the line, but a couple of people enjoyed meatballs and sauce on Tom's fantastic bread.

Sweets set out with this meal included the following surreal cream puffs made by Mary Ann, the onion and sauerkraut lady:

And surreal nut brittles created for us by Farmers Market Fudge at Cleveland's storied West Side Market. The varieties included Chipolte, Habanero, and Wasabi.

Thankfully, the hotel provides the Saturday dinner, so our last task was floats: Home Brewed Root Beer Floats, Mudslides a la mode, or Oompah Loompah Stout a la mode, made with a local ice cream from Scoops & More. No photos of this - I fell asleep after putting the fixings out for service.

After Sunday's Continental Breakfast, we packed everything up in the truck and returned it to my basement. Until the next RG.

Edited March 12, 2023 by NancyH (log)

[wattacetti]

Wow - THIS is impressive. I definitely bow to your organizational greatness (makes my 66 portion tasting menu output seem so small and insignificant).

That comment about your husband having a little too much time on his hands… aren't you the one who made six shapes of meatballs for a group of 150?

[prasantrin]

How did you make the eggplant balls? I think I need some of those!

Fabulous work! I wish I could have been there!

[tino27]

I laughed my butt off when I saw the meatball shapes. That ROCKS!

Wow, Nancy, what an amazing effort on your part! I'm glad my small contribution to the event was well received.

ETA: In case anyone was wondering, the bread was a braided bread consisting of one strand of roasted red pepper and black peppercorn bread and the other strand was a basil pesto bread.

Edited October 2, 2007 by tino27 (log)

[NancyH]

I laughed my butt off when I saw the meatball shapes. That ROCKS! 

Wow, Nancy, what an amazing effort on your part! I'm glad my small contribution to the event was well received.

ETA: In case anyone was wondering, the bread was a braided bread consisting of one strand of roasted red pepper and black peppercorn bread and the other strand was a basil pesto bread.

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Tino - the gathering chair - who had the Bosch/Surreal vision - especially enjoyed how surreal the bread was!

[snowangel]

Nancy, impressive! Where did you get the equipment?

And, which were the most successful sausages?

[NancyH]

Nancy, impressive!  Where did you get the equipment?

And, which were the most successful sausages?

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Which equipment did you want to know about?

As for the sausages - the Yamato was completely consumed (both the vegetarian loaf and the almost vegetarian except for the casing links), but Bob made fewer of them than the others. I just asked him, and he thinks it was the Cluck and Moo (and I must give my mom credit for coming up with the name - it is the name she always uses for a BBQ of beef and chicken products).

[NancyH]

Well, we just did it again, but we only were responsible for one meal. Bob and I "guest cheffed" Friday Dinner for the Cincinnati group's Regional Gathering - "Revolutions". As always, we had some fun playing with the theme. A complete report and all the photos is posted on my blog (http://funplayingwithfood.blogspot.com), but here's a sampling!

Since we were traveling over 200 miles, we didn't really bring much equipment - we relied on the local group's stuff, which worked out rather well.

First - the Prep Room setup:

One wall of the Prep Room ready for business

Our 5 Burner "Kitchen"

 

Blessed are those who washeth the dishes

 

Two Full Sized, Fully Stuffed Fridges and Freezers, from RentACenter

Of course, all of the food was round, or rolled, or otherwise somehow connected (however tenuously) to the theme.

We started with three soups:

Turkey Soup with Wagon Wheel Pasta

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

Turkey Roulades with Almond, Apricot and Cranberry Stuffing

Turkey Gravy

Breads Rolled Around Stuffings

Bob made several varieties, with meats or cheeses and seasonings. They were fabulous!

Everything came out exactly as planned! And, our duties were finished after Friday dinner, so we were actually able to enjoy the party for the rest of the weekend.

Edited March 12, 2023 by NancyH (log)

[heidih]

How did you make the eggplant balls?  I think I need some of those!

Fabulous work!  I wish I could have been there!

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Ditto on the eggplant balls. Thanks for documenting and sharing.