This line from “Phantom of the Opera” is with me every time we host a Supper Club event. No matter what happens, with a little planning and some quick thinking no one will ever know you had a problem.
Working with Kraft we staged culinary events around the world. And, pretty much what could go wrong did go wrong. With that said 99% of the attendees at those jinxed events had no idea we had a problem.
The two biggest issues that occur are:
- Something gets over cooked
- You run out of a feature item
Having backups is the easy answer. Most cooks will have an extra or two in the hopper. A microwave’s defrost features work wonders. Quick substitutions are virtually never noticed.
Then there are those disasters that you can’t plan for:
We once hosted a culinary event in San Diego that was disrupted by the outbreak of the war in Iraq. The show went on and we got to watch lots of action as the event was held on a beach in site of the Naval Air Station.
There was the trade show in Säo Paulo where our kitchen equipment short-circuited. Every time a chef touched a pan he got shocked. We had an electrician do the cooking until the problem got fixed.
The classic was a trade show in Chicago where we were featuring an Oreo Lava Cake. To this day I don’t really know what happened, but after day one of a 3 day show we ran out. We bought the chef that short ordered the lava cakes a new calculator and served lots of Oreo cheesecake.
When in doubt, over order. To this day my wife Susan complains about me overcooking. Guilty! In my opinion leftovers are never a disaster!
If you enjoy this blog and similar other stories/supper club lessons subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and be on the look out for my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs. Morgan James Publishing published the Kindle-Version on September 5, 2017 and the hard copy coming out January 30, 2018.