Friday night (Saturday morning?) I didn't sleep well and ended up getting up about 7:00. LLT was already up. Soon everyone was up and we split up. While
Sadly, this year the decorating crew managed to miss the load in of the kitchen stuff. I don't know what happened, but they were LATE ;). But then we were early enough that the site cleaning crew was still there. So we cleaned out the cars (luckily the site has 2 rolly carts). Then while the rest of the gang organized the kitchen I headed out again. My first stop was the liquor store for Rum (151), Kaluha and Butane for the torch. Got the first two - but they didn't have butane. 2nd stop was a hardware store for rope lights, but no Butane again. I also picked up a roll of what I thought was duct tape, but turned out to be something else (I think
While I'd been gone the crew had been busy, setting up the dessert alcove with levels made of kitchen crates and covering them with fabric and setting up the kitchen tables. Before we knew it
Don't get me wrong - I kept myself busy. First off I needed to make mini crustless cheesecakes. The problem with this is that we've managed to lose LLT's Microplane (I pause now for a moment of silence). This was about the time that
While the cheesecakes were baking I started working on the creme brulee which was our special treat for the kitchen staff. We actually ended up never baking the last tray of cheesecakes because by the time the cheesecakes and creme brulee were done enough to pull LLT needed the ovens to start baking the actual dinner. We intended to go back and cook the last tray of cheesecake after the last food came out of the oven but it just never happened.
So once the last of the desserts went into the oven I left the kitchen for my little alcove in the hall (behind the brig). There
Keep in mind that while I was working on all of this in the hallway LLT's kitchen crew was busy working their tails off making all the food that went on the buffet. There was chicken with Marsala sauce, roasted potatoes, grilled onions and mushrooms, noodles and roast beef. Plus salad with 3 kinds of salad dressings plus bread and butter (both plain and honey).
I'm not even sure who all did what in the kitchen other than that
Each of us also snuck out to go through the raffle room (although I had to practically force LLT out of the kitchen to do it). And of course
I got a treat as well -
So once service started
To our surprise, the thing that we seemed to run through the most of? The salad - we came fairly close to running out - by the time people stopped eating we'd gone through ALL of the salad in the kitchen and there was less than 1/4 of a bowl left on the buffet. The other funny thing was that while
The food seemed to go well, I only got a couple of comments later. 1)
As far as I can tell the only real issue the entire night was with the Alaska Bombe. Against my better judgment LLT was trying it for the FIRST time that night - you guys all know how much I HATE that. Well the kitchen was warm so
The other issue is that by the time LLT toasted the sugar on the creme brulee the Pyrates Royale were onstage so the Captain didn't get his dish until after the last song of the night. He seemed to really appreciate it though.
The worst part of the night is that I went to move a chair by the dessert table as I was packing some things up and didn't realize that
The good thing is that the kitchen crew did a fabulous job with cleaning to the point that we were able to sit outside and watch the last bit of the jam session at the end of the night with
Everything got loaded into the cars and we all headed for home, where we sat up decompressing for a while before all getting to bed somewhere around 1 am.
Sunday was a recovery day with much napping, eating and watching of tv/movies.
All in all things went fairly well. If you count the things that LLT turned in receipts for we came in about $14 over budget (IIRC $800). I'd say that between us LLT and I spent an additional $150-200ish on stuff we didn't turn in receipts for (food table/dessert area decorations and most of the dessert supplies).
edited: the weirdest thing of all? I actually did something I NEVER do - at the end of the evening I made myself a plate of food - salad, noodles, beef and chicken. I can never face the thought of eating more than nibbles after a feast kitchen but for some reason the idea of both the noodles and the salad was really good to me and I felt the need - of course part of that might be skipping lunch.
The important part of all this? We raised over $10K this year (in a bad economy) for Breast Cancer research - in one night!