Hi Everyone! Hope you’ve been enjoying the first couple weeks of the new year. As I mentioned previously, I’ve taken up a new role back in finance. So with commuting and working, it’s been tough to find time to sit down and blog. So nearly a month later, I finally found a Saturday afternoon to share a few pictures of my very first professional experience.
Just one town over in Amersham, the Seasons Catering team were gracious enough to give me the opportunity to cook with them one evening at a private party. It’s a bit of a story how it came about, but needless to say I’m a big fan of the Seasons group which includes Seasons Cafe in old Amersham, another at the Rowan Garden Centre and their traditional Sweets shop also in old Amersham. Chris and I are frequent customers of the Cafe in old Amersham where we have brunch on the weekends. We love sitting up at the counter, reading the paper and having our huevos rancheros or super fluffy scrambled eggs on corn toast. It’s a really cosy place with a deli too – selling all sorts of treats, bread, pies, sandwiches and more.
Chef/Co-Owner Claire and I
So for my catering experience, I arrived a private home in Amersham to meet Claire and the team. It was so impressive how much equipment they brought with them! For about 60 guests, the team provided a pop-up bar and staff who served up a few different canapes and ‘small-bowl’ food. You are probably asking what I did – what is small bowl food?? It is apparently a new trend in the catering world. Rather than having a buffet, catered events are now offering small bowls of food served by wait-staff. As you’ll see in the pictures below, they are literally small bowls. The portion size is a few bites and is similar in size to Spanish tapas or Chinese dim sum. The staff serve them on trays and then pick up the empty bowls afterwards.. Got the concept? It’s brilliant isn’t it?! All the guests were well fed and were able to socialize and mingle about.
Right, the most important party – the food! The first canape we did was Coconut Crusted Prawns with sweet chilli dip. As you’ll see below, Claire is amazing at presentation. She had a collection of gorgeous platters and add a fresh touch of orchids, lemon grass and chillis.
Coconut Crusted Fried Shrimp
While these look simple, they were incredible. The coconut added such a great, unique flavor with the shrimp. I’ve only ever seen a coconut crust once before with chicken at a Caribbean place in L.A. If you ever order from Seasons, I highly recommend these! There were a few other canapes served that evening including Fresh Scallops Wrapped in Bacon and Lobster Bisque with Paprika Crositini. But I was too busy prepping to take more photos. But here are some of the small bowl foods we prepared that night..
Small Bowls of Bangers & Mash with Caramelised Onion Gravy
Small Bowls of Thai Green Chicken Curry with rice
Small Bowls of Tandoori Lamb, Pilau Rice, Mint Raita and fresh Poppadoms
There was one more dish that night that I didn’t get a chance to take a photo of.. And what a shame because I think it was my favorite! It was Duck a l’orange with Dauphinoise Potatoes. So all in all, you can see why I was so blown away by my first catering experience. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance to help out with all the prep. Claire took care of all that and brought a lot of the food prepared. I just helped out with prepping and serving the dishes. But it was such a great experience. The team worked so well together! There was so much going on – from getting the timings right to ensuring all the dishes were being served hot and being cleared for more. The team even bring all glass, crockery and cutlery and even take it with them to wash up. So the customer’s experience is completely stress free!
To the Catering Team at Seasons, thank you so much for the experience and I hope to work for you again some time soon! In the mean time, I’ll see you around in the Cafe 🙂
a VU on Food 