January 23, 2011

The new, but not really new anymore job--and other stuff!

















Hello, hello!
Woo its been a long time!
It's almost been a year since I started at Food For Thought Catering, which is unbelievable. Some days it feels like its only been a month, others...more like 30 years! I'm proud to say I still love, love my job. I work with brilliantly funny and interesting people, and I'm really starting to come in to my own in the industry. Cake land has definitely been pushed aside for quite a while, which is a complete bummer sometimes. I've turned down a lot of orders, but on the positive side I've really been able to work on refining other skills I can use later, and in time I'll be able to figure out an organized way of working both jobs..
I've just recently gotten a phone that takes BEAUTIFUL pictures, which is fantastic because until this I haven't really taken any good pictures at my job!
I mostly work at the shop, prepping for events and preparing tastings for upcoming or possible events. These pictures were all from two recent tastings, one was for a huge all day gala for Steppenwolf.
Every once in a while some of the people in the shop will get called to work out in the field at the actual events doing plate-up and working the line. My all time favorite so far was working a beignet station at the Field Museum. The gala was for the opening on the Gold Exhibit at the museum. Hundreds of people and dozens of beautifully decorated tables filled the main room of the museum. It was absolutely surreal to be there at night in the middle of it all, just casually serving the guests. I was right underneath Sue the entire time, and it was amazing.
Most of the time, however, working the field is behind the scenes.
Most of the orders that I've been taking outside of the day job have been relatively small; the only really detailed cake I've done was for a retirement/ birthday cake a few months ago for Belinda Silber at Le Cordon Bleu-Chicago, where I went to college. She got my information from one of my old chefs at school, and I made a small cake for her husbands 65th birthday/retirement brunch.
She wanted to incorporate a bunch of his favorite things, like his two cats, a few of his published books, Grateful dead, and lest we forget-Doritos.
I suppose I went pretty traditional with the vegging out on the couch retirement theme, and it was a hit! I had a lot of fun with this cake, spending wayyy too much time with the details, but no regrets! I was really happy with how it turned out and as always, I couldn't get enough of the peoples faces.

I'll keep posting more pictures from work, and hopefully some new cake orders in the near future!


Till next time,
Kim.

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