Ah Wednesday, the middle of the week. Still didn’t get enough sleep but that seems to be the theme for this week. At least I am not hovering over the coffee pot hoping the vapors released during brewing are caffeinated. So on with the morning prompt.
You know, it also seems to be a theme this wee that I am just about through the set up to figure out what the story is about when the timer goes off. I’ll do another pass through at lunch and see if i can figure this one out.
Wednesday, April 3rd: The balloons were gold and silver.
The balloons were gold and silver. They reminded me of my high school prom and I thought it strange for tonight’s event, but as I was not in charge of the decorations, I said nothing. I knew that nothing I said would matter anyway. They would do what they were going to do and any attempt at commenting would just make things worse.
I decided to stick to my lane and focused on the food. I made certain all of the food was where it need to be and had the appropriate serving items near it. I placed prominent signage so there would be no confusion. We had a vegan table, and a vegetarian table as well as an anything goes table. The vegetarian table was placed between the vegans and the omnivores like a referee. There were notes for foods that were gluten free and those that contained no carbs.
The fact that I was pretty sure most of the options were pretty obvious made no matter, I laced the signs. If there was confusion tonight it would not because someone didn’t know if one of my dishes contained gluten or not. Anything with dairy was similarly marked in the hopes of not confusing the lactose intolerant. In addition, each card had a list of ingredients should there be anything else they were avoiding. When putting together the menu I avoided using any shellfish or nuts, thinking shellfish and peanut allergies were best avoided.
I knew there were things I probably missed, at the moment I couldn’t think of anything. It had been years since I catered anything and even then, I only helped out when I was needed. My strengths were in recipe development. If you had a unique item you wanted to build a dish around, then I was the person you called. I worked with everything from heirloom varietals people wanted to make popular again, to the new and improved items. I designed meals to showcase certain wines or spirits as well as ingredients.
I was also the only chef the family had.
Most of my relatives either ate out, or reheated leftovers from eating out in the microwave if they were eating at home. I found out the day before that my cousin Trina couldn’t even make toast. Of all the things I thought I would do for this event, showing my cousin how the toaster worked was not one I anticipated.
‘But she does have a beautiful toaster,’ I had to concede as I looked over the food tables one last time. She purchased a limited edition Dolce & Gabana toaster from Smeg. It was beautiful, expensive and when it was used for the first time, made great toast. I shook the thought away and took one more look at the balloons.
Ten til Midnight 