Making It Real

Peter lectured about quality and the goal of meeting or exceeding your client's expectations. Much of the focus of his lecture was on the concept of "service gaps" -- things that go wrong -- because, inevitably, they will, and your response to them is critical to your overall success. Much is dependent on training and accumulated experience. I also think that success in the catering arena -- as in so many others -- is the product of many nights of wakefulness, imagining all the things that could possibly happen, then adjusting accordingly in the light of day.

After a break, we were free to work on our class and individual projects. I made a master requisition list from all of the recipes for our benefit lunch next week, then went down to the Bistro kitchen to determine what ingredients we already had on hand. Andy, Alex, Jordan and Derrick came along. Alex and Jordan ended up finishing the deep-fryer clean-up they'd begun last week, as nobody in the building seemed to be taking charge. Andy and Derrick checked the available equipment against their master list, then Andy made French toast.

After school, I had a non-school-related real-world culinary appointment with a dietitian, whose services (up to 10 hours per year) are covered by our health plan. To make my cooking more heart-healthy, she encouraged the removal of chicken skin, and suggested that I limit my purchasing of salty snacks. But she's not big on saying "No" -- "You have to take into account quality-of-life issues" -- but she did recommend that steak dinners be limited to once a month or so. She's a proponent of nuts (unsalted, of course) as the crunchy snack of choice. And she said I should use more avocados, flax seed, olive oil, and whole grains. Bread and cereal should have at least 3 grams of fiber per serving. Just like Chef Vinita said, knowing how to cook a varied diet with healthy ingredients is important: you may have to do it for someone you love.