Friday, January 29, 2010

Cooking for Lots!

A couple of weeks ago Chris and I had a first. We fixed food for a little over 100 people.

Chris is the Education Director for the congregation that we worship with and so we organized a Teacher Appreciation Luncheon for the people who taught classes last year. It was lots of fun.

When it was all over, Chris looked at me and said "I guess we make a pretty good team - huh?" WELL, YES, ABSOLUTELY!!We learned a few things about cooking/hosting a meal for lots of people and I thought I would share.

#1 Convection Ovens and Warmers are your friend when making 24 Chicken and Rice casseroles. Actually, your friends that let you borrow all their 9x13 dishes are pretty awesome too!

#2 When you are stumped for a simple and inexpensive centerpiece, sit in the middle of your kitchen with all of your cabinets open and think. You will finally realize that your beautiful Ice Tea Glasses are, for this event, a centerpiece waiting to happen. Some tissue paper, some ribbon, and ta da....

#3 Don't be scared to have bread and salad on the tables ready to eat to buy you a little extra time in the cooking/serving time period of your lunch. Very helpful. (Thanks for that idea Mom!) Also, don't be scared to let someone else make the salad and the bread for you so you have one less detail to worry about.

#4 Always Always Always call on my wonderful friend Elizabeth for great tasting, beautiful cakes for dessert!
#5 Assign someone to be a picture taker for you. This wonderful opportunity that Chris and I had to honor the people that help us so much and that work so hard, and I don't have one picture of any of those people. Very Sad.

#6 Go ahead and ask someone to help you with the kids the day something like this is going on. Really. It will be your saving grace. We had a load of help with Hannah and Justus and we just could not have gotten it all done and still had all our hair in our head without them. Thank you Claire, Meltons, Rodgers, and Pritchetts.

#7 Let yourself feel blessed that you have the opportunity to show so many people how much you love and appreciate them. Make it so special - for everyone - even you!

3 comments:

JoniDH said...

Beautiful event and beautiful review!

Kathy said...

For the last several years I've put together a ladies dinner and I understand and agree with all of your comments. I've definitely had issues when the kids have been there and if it weren't people that help entertain them I wouldn't know what to do. For the first 2 years I cooked the meal myself and I can SO understand the comments about the dishes, warming ovens, and convection ovens. One year if it wouldn't have been for Bobby taking a lot of the main dishes over to the campground kitchen, I don't know how long we would have been waiting to eat! Luckily some people have shared pictures with me but never as many that really capture the whole event. Too bad Elizabeth hasn't been around to do our cakes...we're doing it again April 17th, think she's like to transport some over to DC in NC??

Betty said...

Know ya'll worked so hard on this! The cakes, of course, were spectacular and I love you table decorations!