Happy New Year to all my current and future readers, present and future friends, my family…
The New Year brings a new name and a new look to this blog of reflections on a (half) life of travels and discoveries :
FERNWEH
Hospitality short stories from around the world
Fernweh : Literally “farsickness” or “longing for far-off places”, as contrasted with Heimweh (“homesickness, longing for home”).
Watching planes go by at an airport may inflict Fernweh… ever had that feeling?
I know it may sound strange for me to choose a German word, given that I have travelled all around except Germany! (I have it on my list though :)), but I just thought that the definition fit perfectly and I could not find a one word in French, English or Spanish that worked so well.
My first 2016’s topic will feature an important component of a Food and Beverage department, developed in many hotels : outside catering
La Raya, Peru, somewhere in the Andes between Cusco and Puno….
Some of the main advantages, amongst others, are :
- visibility
- access to clients who might not be your everyday Food & Beverage patrons
- diversification of your activities
Undoubtedly it is also a challenging activity for the kitchen and banqueting teams, but most importantly it is usually an enriching and sometimes adventurous experience… as it demands very good organization, planning and logistical skills !
I recall sometimes in 1995, a very busy period in banqueting at the Hyatt Regency Merida, our hotel being almost completely requisitioned for a “Conferencia de Aduaneros”, a customs officers conference.
For three days the group gathered for numerous conferences and meetings, giving us the entire responsibility of organizing their many Food & Beverage events, in and outside the hotel.
On the last day of their stay, after having served about 400 breakfasts, the Regency ballroom had to be reset with a totally different theme : “Clamato afternoon”.
As you guessed Clamato is another name for tomato juice, also called Virgin (no alcohol) or Bloody (with vodka) Mary…
This event had a special decoration according to the theme, which took us a few hours to realize, just in time for the guests arrival!
Clamato afternoon was an aperitif before their last dinner in Merida, well, actually in Uxmal, a famous Mayan site…. about 60 kilometers away.
So the plan was to serve a buffet for 700 guests, under a very large tent (it often pours rains in tropical Yucatan!!), all this between 7 and 8pm, so that the guests could then watch the sound and light show at the archaeological site.
Most of the kitchen production, in this kind of event, is prepared as much as possible in the hotel’s facilities (a site like Uxmal would not have such facilities), but the finishing / reheating has to take place on site of course, so a few trucks were necessary to carry all the equipment, food supplies and of course. A bus was also rented to transport the staff who was to participate in the event.
I often talk to my students about “par stocks”, which is basically the quantity of each item you should have on hand (food products, drinks, silverware, linen, etc…), in order to run a successful operation and almost never run out of anything…
This particular afternoon, we definitely struggled with our glasses’ par stock , those having to be washed and polished after the Clamato event, in order to be loaded onto the fourth and last truck headed to Uxmal…
Well, as for the Mexican weddings, sometimes guests enjoy the party so much that they have a real hard time to leave…. so our truck left, slightly on the late side 🙂
Trucks loaded with fragile glasses, in the rain, with potholes every 5 10 meters, don’t tend to go very fast, and we got there JUST in time, but with so many colleagues eagerly waiting for us to finish the banquet setup (we also were carrying the 700 chairs!), the truck was unloaded in a matter of minutes and guests seated promptly… and had a great evening (I did ask the organizer!)
A few minutes later and the event could have really gone in the wrong direction, with the food on the buffets and no seats to sit on, but the “man on his wire” caught his balance back, and the event was altogether a success… lesson learned, next time I would hire extra equipment and not count on my department’s par stock (unless I want to specialize in large events outside catering)…
Hasta la semana proxima ! Vamos a Cancun 🙂
