Cohen/Venuto Recital Hall

Last night our apartment was transformed into a small concert hall accommodating 46 guests. It really was loads of fun in a grown up, sophisticated kind of way.

Joe played an impressive piano program that included Shubert, Mozart, Chopin, and Monpou. An hour later our guests were drinking and nibbling canapes in the dining room. Catering for this event had been my responsibility and one I took with my usual diligence for food.

Using the "Party Calculator" I stumbled across last week on the Appetizers To Go website I figured I needed roughly 315 appetizer servings or 7 a head. That meant a menu with 6 different dishes would require 50 servings of each, supplemented with a large cheese board.

Once I started, I got carried away and ended up with the following serving counts:

196 Meatballs (chicken & pork mixture)
210 vol-au-vents (bechamel with mushrooms, onions & gruyere)
110 mini onion tarts (vermouth sauted onions)
80 salmon blinis (smoked salmon slices, dill creme fraiche on buckwheat blinis)
80 cupcakes (filled with freshly whipped cream & dusted with powdered sugar)
2 lbs of cheese

It wasn't as much effort as it sounds since I found wholesale pastry cases and shells which made this menu and volume possible and literally reduced preparation time from 48 hours to 5. I can thoroughly recommend ordering wholesale.

Another measure of success is that by 1:30 am most of the food had been devoured. I don't think the salmon blinis made it out of the kitchen before the serving tray was returned and the meatballs were disappearing faster than those at an Ikea cafeteria.

Out of catering curiosity (and future reference) I "ran the numbers" this morning and found that every guest consumed at least 18 individual servings and 1/2 bottle of white wine during the party's 3 hours.

I have to thank Dervala, who is staying with us right now. Not only did she provide the excellent suggestion of stuffing vol-au-vents with mushroom, but she helped decorate the cupcakes to my instruction and more importantly inspired me to start writing in my blog again!

Posted by dvenuto at November 16, 2003 06:23 PM