Catering & Me

ICC's truck unloading under the Barnes' iconic overhang About a month or so ago, my good friend Tia Triplett asked me to coordinate vendors for interesting food booths on the terrace at the new Barnes museum on their free ticket Memorial day weekend. Tia is the on-site GM for 1st & Fresh Catering the food service provider for the museum. Due to the extremely heavy load of catered events and opening their restaurant and coffee bar, they needed some relief for their staff and that is why they decided to subcontract this project. Tia chose me to do this because of my museum experience and my knowledge of what the best vendor solution would be to make it special for the guests. My immediate thought was to involve all my catering clients, but since only one of them has an ongoing vending component to their business model, I decided to work on this with Rocco Gallelli, Joe Divon and Steve Mastero, owners of Innovative Catering Concepts. Field kitchen and grill station ...

Charlotte NC Skyline  One of my favorite songs is the Taj Mahal version of this classic road song. I listened to it about three or four times on my recent trip to Charlotte NC and Tampa FL. It's on one of my i-pod play lists that I named "Kind of Country" It was just a coincidence that I was on the road from last Wednesday to this Tuesday. Six days on the road. Center of Charlotte. Tryon and Trade Streets. Two blocks from Time Warner Cable Arena where the DNC will be held Bechtler Museum and Knight Theater in the "CLT" I went on this journey to scout venues and catering options for the upcoming political conventions. When I get to a new town I usually start to walk all over, and talk to as many people as possible. Get my bearings, learn about what I may not have picked up in my readings before getting there, and most important, find venues that I might not have found without happening upon them. I fell in love with Charlotte. I spent time in NC as...

I love to watch cooking shows. I started with Julia Child and the Galloping Gourmet s a child, and instantly fell in love with the Food Network when it started. I got to collaborate on some Book & The Cook events (remember that?) with The Two Hot Tamales when I was at Arroyo Grille in the late 90's, and in the kitchen at the time was a budding new talented chef by the name of Jennifer Carroll. These days my favorite show is Rick Bayless's  Mexico, one plate at a time , and I really like the competition shows, Top Chef, Next Iron Chef, and Chopped. Here are two lesser known cooking shows I hope you enjoy as much as I do. Okay, next blog post will be back to covering catering world. There is lots to cover including the opening of the Barnes Museum and a new Facebook group, Philly Catering Stars. Also, I am compiling my thoughts for  chapter two of "Do the Right Thing", so today let's all do some good.