Catering
Catering a room of forty without anyone noticing
The goal with catering is that nobody in the room thinks about the food at all. Here is roughly how a morning like that runs.
A workshop booked us for forty people, eight thirty start, two urns of coffee and a pastry spread. Eleven days notice, which is comfortable. Four days is possible. Two days is a conversation, and which shop you are asking changes the answer.
The day before
Everything that can be made ahead is made ahead. Scones are shaped and frozen, which is better than making them early: they go into the oven frozen at six and come out at twenty past.
The morning
Two of us start at half past four instead of five. The van is loaded at ten past seven, we are there by twenty five past, and the urns are on and the platters are out before anybody arrives. Then we leave, which is the important part.
We came back at noon for the trays. One of the urns had not been touched. We have since stopped assuming two urns for forty people, because the actual number is about one and a half, and now we say so when people ask.
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Why the sourdough takes three days
People ask why we only have bread some days. The honest answer is that it takes three days and Mill Street has one oven.