Oh what a night!!

I was asked, along with my friend Anne, to serve at my colleagues wifes birthday party. It was to take place at the school and we were to serve the starter, set up the buffet, serve coffee and dessert, then wash up the dirty dishes.(All the food would be delivered, ready cooked, just to be served.) Sounded simple enough. But nothing is simple when Anne and I are in charge!!


We arrived at 5pm and got all our instructions. The guests would arrive at 6.30pm so we made our plan.


At 6pm we would open the wine and set it on the tables, at 6.10pm we would put the bread in the oven to warm and take the water, coke, 7up etc up to the tables. We would then light all the candles around the room. At 6.20pm we would take out the prawns and salmon and set them on the table.


Everything went well. We put the bread in the oven at 6.10pm. We took a few bottles of coke and a jug of water each and went upstairs to set them on the table. We lit the candles. While lighting the candles I said to Anne "Imagine if we burnt the bread, wouldnt that be awful!" and we laughed. No that couldnt happen, we said to each othere, it had after all only been in the oven a few minutes and we happily went downstairs again into the kitchen.


Well the shock that awaited us!! The bread was burnt!!!! (Dont ask me how it happened.) It had literllay only been in the oven 5minutes. It was 6.15pm and I had put it in 6.10pm. (at 200 degrees) We paniced (then exploded into laughter.) It was then out with knives to try and cut away the really bad burnt bits. Anne cut of the ends and hid them in her bag!! hahaha we had to hide the evidence! We were really in a panic - the kitchen was covered in smoke and the guests would be there very soon....whatever happened to our neatly planned programme!!


Anyway, we got the starter served without the guests suspecting that we really didnt have a clue about what we were doing!! haha


We sweated buckets as we tried to cut the meats and get everything ready to serve for the main course. That went ok. Whew!!!



Then we were to serve coffe, fruit pie and ice cream for dessert. We thought we had control over everything. The ice cream cake was ready to be served (it had to be taken out of the freezer 15 minutes before serving and we had done that)...the pies and fresh cream ready, the plates and coffee cups out and ready. We would serve dessert in 5 minutes. We were soooo proud of ourselves, we were getting the hang of this catering thing, when it struck us, we hadnt made any tea or coffee!!! Panic again....hahaha Oh what a night!!


Finally came the bit we were good at, the cleaning up. The kitchen literally looked like a bomb had hit it. It is a big industrial kitchen, lots of worktops and space and we used every inch of space available. Once we got clearing up though, well it went like clockwork. That was the part we enjoyed.


We decided that serving/catering was just not for us.


The guests didnt suspect a thing but the havoic that went on behind the closed doors of the kitchen was another story. The guests had a great time, the food was delicious and we looked like we had control of everything when the guests were around. haha


I am just so thankful that we didnt have to make the food. Could you imagine the disaster that would have been.


But it was a great evening, even though we sweated and paniced and ran around at times like chickens without any heads. In between all of that we were able to eat some delicious food and have a good natter and off course laugh.

I also had a senior moment this evening. I totally forgot its the first of the month and chat night. I am soooo sorry for forgetting and forgetting to post a reminder....maybe we can fit another chat night in sometime in the middle of March ....I´ll get back to you all with dates.