shrooming!

last night was the spice of life fall forage and f&b plated landscape dinner at killibuck valley mushroom farm. for those of you unfamiliar with s.o.l.'s plated landscape dinners, throughout the summer and early fall, ben and co. host incredibly unique multi-course plated dinners on some of the farms from which we source our locally grown foods. the killibuck valley dinner is the benchmark by which all of the other dinners are judged. the setting is absolutely beautiful, listening to tom and wendy, the owners, discuss the actual science and method behind growing mushrooms is truly fascinating, and, like the other dinners, the whole experience feels like it was dipped in some kind of magic. our dinner for this lovely, cool evening was staged in an open-sided barn and a great band played quiet classic rock throughout the evening...with guests at the table tearing up quietly when one or another particular piece seemed to touch their hearts and bring even more power to this uniquely memorable event (the beatles always get me). the seven course meal was, of course, fantastic, even though ben began the evening by pointing out to all of the diners that they were lucky enough to be eating with a food network star...a little embarassing and mostly untrue, but funny. after basking in the glow of the wonderful setting for a while, the wine and beer started to take hold and the generally festive atmosphere became even more so. our end of the table was, as usual, loud and really, really jokey. i honestly don't remember the last time i laughed so hard or well. my very good friends who i don't get to see as often as i would like, michael and nicole, joined us to celebrate nicole's birthday and really helped to amp up the laughfest at our end, with the rest of the table stealing glances from time to time to see what was so incredibly hilarious. for me, the real stars of the show were ben, jess, chris, dan, and ryan from spice of life, my much-loved friends with whom i dined, and karen small, one of cleveland's very best chefs and owner of the flying fig, my favorite restaurant in town. the whole experience was like catching lightning in a jar and a reminder of just how beautiful and perfect life can be. thanks to everyone involved for a truly memorable night...and, of course, the staggering hangover that's followed it today. ha!

the other woman in my life...

david, our on-site event manager at park lane villa, just sent me this forgotten photo from a p.r. shoot that my partner, joan, and i did last year. after taking a hundred shots of she and i looking enthused with our platter of food, i decided it would be nice to capture us also looking bored and melancholy. in reality, we're rarely bored and only occasionally melancholy. mostly, we're pretty happy and jokie. joan founded marigold eleven years ago and worked like crazy to grow the thing with a rotating cast of chefs in the kitchen. when we met, it was some version of love at first sight and here we are five years later, still working like crazy, but having just been voted #1 caterer in cleveland and bagging top three rankings and a couple of weatherhead 100 awards for being one of the fastest growing companies in northeast ohio over the last couple of years. i'm immensely proud of what we've done and built together here at marigold and can't wait to see where the future will take us. that said, this entry is more of a love letter to joan, my business partner, true friend and confidant, #1 fan, and, no matter what girl i'm dating, my official lifelong 'other woman'. thanks for making me part of your life, rosenthal.

holy hanna!!!

this past saturday night was a big one in the life of marigold catering. we were fortunate (and talented, i like to think) enough to be chosen to take care of the catering for the gala opening of the newly and beautifully remodeled and re-imagined hanna theater. the event, which was for 580 guests, was absolutely one of the highest profile shindigs that we've ever done and, thanks to everyone's hard work, it went just about perfectly, something that's almost scary in the catering world. our event planner in charge of the event, phil, did a great job of organizing all of the details and performed with true grace under pressure throughout the evening. to your left, you can see a shot that i took of the tent which was placed right on the closed-off street in front of the theater. passed hors d'ouevres and cocktails took place inside the hanna itself, followed by plated arugula salads and gazpacho, a buffet dinner, and miniature desserts inside the tent. there was a cool band that played a lot of motown covers and our kitchen tent was set up right next to starbucks, so i was able to throw down a few iced venti quad lattes to keep me going. it's always wonderful when an event goes well. you leave feeling like you can do anything in the world...like a rock star, as they say. the best worst part of the event, however, came the next day when tony brown from the plain dealer's metro section gave credit for the catering to the hanna deli, instead of us. nice research, buddy! you could have asked anyone involved in the event and gotten the right answer, but assuming works well too... that aside, it was a great night, we heard a lot of really enthusiastic comments and, at the end of the day, we got to continue to be the biggest, best-kept secret in cleveland catering afterall. oh well, if we keep treating so many people in the city to such memorable nights, eventually someone will remember our name in the morning.

best place to work...ever.

so, as any frequent reader of this blog knows, the kitchen staff at marigold/spice of life has its own sort of super fun, practical joking, chaotic kind of anti-culture culture. i won't use names, but someone came up with the idea last week of blowing up a locally grown watermelon with a smll pipe bomb. a couple of days ago, one of the boys rushed into my office around ten in the morning and said excitedly, "it's time". never being one to miss a moment of fun and mayhem, i hurried out to the back alley. the camera was set and we had about ten seconds of fuse to run for cover. what you see above are some of the great resulting shots. how awesome! what a great way to start the day. i really do love this place and my merry band of cooks. there are the occasional days when being in the food and beverage industry beats having an office job hands down. p.s. blogger's system for uploading photos is medeival.

back to the hamptons

somehow, the event scheduling gods smiled on us over labor day weekend and the kitchen staff was lucky enough to get three days off in a row. yay! being adventurous and insane, i decided to take the opportunity to drive up to the hamptons with a friend to visit timmy and douggy and send the summer out in style. leaving after work on friday put me there at around 4:00 in the morning, but a short night's sleep had everyone primed for a good day of vacationing. less than favorable weather, however, killed any ideas of a day at the beach. this gave us the chance, though, to go exploring. we drove up to montauk, went to the lighthouse, hit a few bars and restaurants in town and along the way and had a really awesome day getting to enjoy being tourists. after a week spent working at the meetinghouse back in july, it was really nice to finally to get some free time up in the playground of new york's rich and famous. the highlight of the first day, though, was absolutely an awesome restaurant called the surf lodge. we sat on their giant patio overlooking the water, drank really expensive margaritas, listened to a fantastic female r&b singer, and watched the sun come out, promising good weather for sunday. the place itself is a perfect example of hamptons shabby chic and apparently the chef was one of the contestants on top chef, though we didn't eat having filled up on fried food and montauk's coolest dive bar earlier in the day. by 6:00, however, we were pretty much completely drunk and tired so we headed home for a short five hour nap. ha! one of the nice things about amagansett (and the hamptons in general) is that the bars stay open until four, so you can start late and end late. anyway, we enjoyed a post nap dinner at the meetinghouse and then headed over to talkhouse, the strangest dive bar i've ever found...great bands, low ceilings, pictures of nude models and all of the famous bands who've played there over the years, and the creme de la creme of new york's rich and famous partying their butts off make for an interesting setting to say the least. sunday turned out to be a beautiful, sunny day so we headed to the beach after brunch (again, at the meetinghouse). in observance of a hampton's post beach tradition, we drove up 27 to a place called cyril's and had a couple of their signature drinks, called bbcs, a particularly formidable concoction when you elect to add an extra shot of rum floating on top. we did. it was nap time again. that night was once more to the talkhouse with all of our friends and another 5:30am bedtime. we got up and drove home around 12:30 the next day and i was home safely by 11:00 monday night. it was an awesome, memorable weekend. (ps. that's tim and his son, gus, enjoying our day at the beach.)