I am a professional catering coordinator who gets to work with many of the top restaurants in the country. My specialty is event planning, but I have also worked for corporate events, fundraisers, and other events. The difference between my job and the others is that I can plan for anything. I know what to expect and I have the experience to create it. I can also work with people who are not on my team.
Catering coordinators are often the last people to know when things go wrong. If you’re one of them, then you know that the food coming out of your kitchen is the last thing you want to see. So you have to plan your meals meticulously to make sure they don’t end up in your food waste bin. The same goes for your catering coordinator. She is the last person to see your food.
I have worked with numerous catering coordinators and they are always the first ones to notice that the food they are putting out is not what they thought it would be. For some reason, they usually expect a certain level of quality in their food and they have no idea how to go about it. Because most catering coordinators I know are not very interested in making food that is consistent with the client’s expectations, they usually end up doing a very bad job.
I can’t tell you how many times I have attended parties where there was food that was not up to my clients’ high standards. I would be the first to admit that I am very picky about what I eat, but I am also very picky about catering food. If you are not up to par, do not invite me.
I have been a catering coordinator for about 1.5 years and I never once had a problem with catering food. There are certainly times when I will overindulge in a cake or a dish that I know is not up to par, but I have never once had a client say they were unhappy with the way the food was cooked.
I am a big fan of all the food I have. I do not care about the high standards of my clients to the point that they expect the same of me. If they are not up to par, I would like to think I would be able to find a better way to serve them.
In a way catering can be seen as a way to bring out our strengths and improve our weaknesses. Some clients are great cooks, but others are not. I have worked with some great chefs, but the ones who don’t cook as well as I do, they have their work cut out for them. I love cooking for those clients who are not great cooks, but they are the ones that actually bring out my weaknesses.
I think I have a pretty fair idea of what catering is supposed to be. I can see the problem though. It is a process of getting food to someone. It is a series of steps. Most people have a few basic questions. “Would you like to have some tea or a glass of wine or a light snack?” and then they proceed to order whatever item they’re wanting from the menu.
There’s a slight problem that happens when we order a meal for someone. Once you’ve got them to your kitchen, they’re going to want to talk and ask questions, plus they are going to want to eat. I hate this part of a meal, because I can’t think of anything worse than talking with someone about a meal, and then they don’t want to eat it.
The problem is that when we order our meals for other diners, we are in effect talking to ourselves. We are self-consciously talking to ourselves, because the food we are eating is what we ordered. This is why there are so many questions we ask ourselves when we’re eating in restaurants, because we are speaking to ourselves about what we are about to eat.