To gree or not to gree…

Nicely put, Dano. Since we’re on the subject of “service as a social experiment”, I’ve got a story for you. It’s not super metaphorical or deep or anything, just an interesting wow-you-kinda-called-it moment…

So D comes in to prep for this rather involved private party last week. It was this past Friday the 22nd actually. Well meaning husband wants to surprise his wife for her 30th birthday, around 25 people. Hubby’s trying to please everyone, so it takes quite a few tries to organize a family-style menu that finally includes a fully boned out, stuffed, 30-something pound turkey, mash, gravy, carrots & peas, beet salads, apple pies and vanilla ice cream, plus passed apps (mmm…homemade poppers using those mini sweet peppers) to start. It’s family style, so nothing is too intricate, but it’s gotta be right, and it’s a lot for one guy to run around and do in an afternoon, especially since D gets hauled off in so many directions over the course of a day.

The plan is that the guests arrive upstairs between 7 - 7:30 pm, and the guy comes with his wife for dinner downstairs for their “reservation” at 8pm. We tell them their table isn’t ready yet, would they like to go upstairs for a drink first…ta da, surprise, everyone is happy and eats like pigs. Except it totally didn’t happen like that at all.

D’s running around like a crazy person come 6pm, since half his day was spent watching the rest of us, hunting down lost invoices, sending back shit product, planning other menus, what have you…and it’s looking like he might just barely make it. The mad scramble we all know. We all glance to see if we can help, if only we could set ourselves up first…oh that friday pre-service dance…

6:30 then 6:45 rolls around, nobody in yet, thank god. Then 7…7:30. Ok, these guys are too cool for school maybe. D is an insane whirlwind, using up every last insert, spoon and towel to make this setup happen. And it does. And all is good.

8 hits, all the apps are ready, plus first course set up to go…and not one single person is here yet. No guests, no husband, no wife. Only after our host (who I think had last spoken to our guy – “looking forward to seeing you on the 22nd!”) called him to ask if he was on his way did we realize that – surprise!!! – the husband, that meatball, had thought the 22nd was a Saturday. And everyone, every single person he invited he had told the wrong date.

That meatball.

Talk about cooking for an empty room, huh?

The interesting thing to me, watching this, was that this food, source of all this stress, neatly collected into three pans and portioned on half trays, somehow became lifted from all its panicky-ness nearly the second we found out the party wasn’t coming. It was the very same food, but somehow all that adrenaline and worry - whoosh - transformed into simply a few ingredients in search of a meal.

And D, through all the running and hunger and lack of sleep, despite all that stress and frenzy, was genuinely was more upset about the fact that no one was coming to eat his food.

I know, this post is getting epic, but bear with my ramblings a touch longer. I guess what I saw that night was a big reason why I think so many of us started, and enjoy cooking for a living…it’s simply satisfying to do good work when you know there’s an audience out there, to immediately validate our efforts, to send (hopefully) their compliments, or better yet, a round of drinks, back to the kitchen. But like that “service as a social experiment” idea we started with, what happens when that audience might not be out there? How would your cooking change, if at all (and let’s be honest here), if there were no cleaned plates coming back, no instant feedback to note your work, your food?

I say this only because I’ve had to struggle with this new, surprisingly frustrating idea in my latest venture as an occasional food stylist. I’m almost used to the idea of “cooking” now just for looks. There’s no diner to season things for (in fact salt often makes things weepy and droop in photos, and mounting with butter is a bad idea unless you want your sauce to split under all the lights), no foodie out there to for which I need to make the plate even edible. It’s strange and awkwardly unnatural at times for sure.

And so I counter the question of why we do what we do, with another, if only to egg you guys on - who are we cooking for? Who do you cook for?