Dinner for 500

I said I help my friend the caterer occasionally so it seems odd that the first two blog posts revolve around her jobs, but really, I do only help out once in a great while. Yeah, so my life revolves a little bit around food. But hey, I like cooking, shopping, and playing with food. One of Lucy's complaints is that our kids think a trip to NY is nothing more than a shopping excursion to a variety of ethnic grocery stores and restaurants.

Anyway, the day after I got my phone I had to help Bonnie the caterer, put out plated dinners for 500 at a big fundraiser. This annual event is always one of the most amusing days of my year. Each time the function is in a different location, never with a real kitchen, no running water or proper refrigeration and always in a tent. My daughter Katie had graduated from 8th grade the day before and Grandma and Grandpa were visiting from Arizona so I left my wife and son with them for the day and took Katie to work with me.

As always, arrived to find problems, one of the 2 small rental trailer refrigerators was not working and the usual general chaos. 4 hours to put together plated salads and main courses. Dinners got done in time and 500+ plates went out in under 16 minutes. There are always about 20 women and me putting out the food, what could be better?

Why is it called "Where are the Marshmallows"?

Okay, so I am a late adopter, a really late adopter, a really really late adopter. Like the next generation has come and gone before I even get there.

Back in March I was at dinner with several professional colleagues who soundly made fun of me for having the oldest cell phone left in the modern world. Not even a flip phone, it was more than sufficient UNTIL June 19, 2009 when my life was changed forever. After a whole lot of kicking, screaming and protesting I picked up my new iPhone. God I hate Apple (well really I love Apple,) they are the scummiest company in the world. They have the most fabulous products and treat their customers like dirt. This is sort of a digression but Apple made me stand in line for hours just to pick up a stupid phone. If I had shown up the next day, I could have walked in and just got my phone in about 4 minutes, but you know Apple, they have to play the scarcity game, it's a damn phone, not the holy grail. Well there is the rub, once you have your iPhone for a while it is the holy grail. Man there is nothing like it. 

What does this have to do with Marshmallows anyway?  So I play and play and play with my phone, shooting videos and sending them to my wife and kids. Nothing important, just a few seconds here and there, unplanned insignificant moments. As time goes by, these videos pile up, my wife finds them amusing and wants me to share them. She is correct in that pre iPhone, I would only have pulled out a video camera once in a great while and only to shoot weddings, graduations, birthdays. With my phone there is none of this, just fleeting  moments of  daily minutia. So here I am writing a blog, cheating a bit. I am writing this on Oct 30 but will date it June 19 and go from there filling in the story as the days and videos go by until I catch up with the present.

Oh yeah, and the marshmallows, I almost forgot. A couple times a year I help a friend who is a caterer and on Sept 12  I cooked chicken breasts and pork tenderloins for 140 of her closest friends. Well really, they were just her clients, but you get the idea. If either of you who actually reads this blog gets as far as Sept 12 you can watch the Marshmallow video, for the rest of you, "Where are the Marshmallows" pretty much says it all. What is life without marshmallows? I have plenty of marshmallows in my life, I hope you do too.