Lin's 40th - a catersource collaboration

Our catering buddy and good Friend John Deatcher (Deatch to his friends) in New Jersey asked us a few monthes ago to hold the date in August as he was planning a catersource rock your world type party to celebrate his sisters 40th and impress the heck out of her friends and clients and showcase to his family his incredible talents. The CuisinEtc team was supposed to come down work a day or two plus hang out at the beach. ha! but of course working on cool parties is much more in line with the passions of a caterer than hanging out on the beach. Life is a party to us, is it not.

So here's what we did and it was really awesome as Margo, Deatch's Scottish Mum kept saying.

The party was held at Old Orchard Golf Club, on the veranda under a permanent tent with a semi circular view of the beautiful greens and a large pond with water fountains off to one side. Lush and green.

Deatch went all out on tabletop rentals from Something Different Party Rentals and the colors were copper and ming green with beautiful dusty gold textured clothes for the guest tables and high tops. I helped him design the centerpieces and We kept them simple - squares of wheatgrass with a single yellow gerber daisy sitting on top of ceramic gold and green square plates and bamboo chargers.

It was a surprise party, so we started off
the first hour with a clover leaf station of 3 circular tables of varying heights and sizes

the tallest table had an archetectural crudite ala feastivities catering with some wheatgrass tucked in and around and a centerpiece of 3 green cymbodium flowers stuck upside down in the vase of water - something that Deatch Andrew and I had seen at a Feastivities event in Philly last year. Won't tell you what we call those flowers but they are the waxy tropical flowers with the "appendage"



the crudite was in tall and short clear glass vases and raised up to different levels further with the use of glass bricks. It made a lovely visual and since there was too much other interesting food, not much of it was eaten but we really didn't expect it to be. We used green cauliflower, and chinese long beans along with the other typical crudite items like radishes, cherry tomato, zucchini peppers, celery, etc. Actually Andrew cut the peppers in rings and we put 3 colors of rings into a long cylinder which looked quite pretty.


the other two clover leafs (tables) were breads & spreads with yummy housemade dips like capanata, guacamole, peach salsa, cuban black beans,baby bellos -bacon - sage and lots of great artisan breads surprisingly from Wegmans Supermarket

and melon balls wrapped with serano ham
skewered out of wheatgrass




The cheese table was also amazing - we had 2-3 varities of fabulous blues - again, Wegman’s which is a regional NE supermarket that has fabulous selection. there were 14 varieties of cheese and the only ones that were neglected by the guests were the pedestrian ones. We used pineapple leaves to make signs for the cheese which looked great and displayed them on marble slabs with lots of big meaty grapes in 3 different colors and life is but a bowl of cherries...

Andrew made his famous swirly flatbreads, famous coconut cilantro chutney. and made most of the spreads except the mushroom - bacon sage which is one of my inventions!

Since the guests had about an hour to wait before the birthday girl arrived they went to town on the breads and spreads and cheeses. Also good point to note here - alot of older guests friends of the family & they are hungry at an earlier hour than the younger folks so having something substantial for them to eat is important.

once Lin arrived passed hors d'oeuvres started circulating
and all the stations commenced serving fabulous food,

one being a super cool Asian station - Deatch & Andrew made up a circular table draped in black with the symbol for friendship cut out and shining thru using lighting under the table in red. The top of the table was also shining red with a plexiglass top and red linens. We used dry ice to create the smoking effect that floated over the red topped table. It was quite impressive...Great effect & another thanks to catersource idea. Executing it at the last moment was stressful but rewarding in the results. Thank you Kinkos & Home Depot.



Above the glowing symbol hung a platter with small round holes that held tuna tatar in mini cones and atop gaufette potatoes. The cones could be made from the gaufette (waffle cut) potatoes) & would taste & look awesome
other features included red to go boxes atop a sliced lime riser, shu mai on asian spoons sitting on sushi plates on colored salt atop river rocks with dry ice making smoke - very cool. duck spring rolls & veggie summer rolls, korean meatballs on edible spoons - a visual and edible feast.





then there was a huge paella station, with fabulous colorful linen & a kick a$$ huge paella pan. used bread racks to stack the round low & placed the paella pan atop a stunning outdoor firepit from home depot. the differing heights - shapes & colors of the stations was impressive.



as if that wasn't enough food
lots of passed stuff too

the award winning mussel aranchini

lobster mac and cheese
- comfort food with an attitude served in square expresso cups.


lamb and chicken satay with dualing dipping sauces


jumbo shrimp cocktail

blacked catfish with pineapple mojo winks


melon balls wrapped in serrano ham with balsamic fig reduction

real Peruvian cerviche with scallps, shrimp and fish
served on scallop shells
made by Death's lovely Peruvan Girlfriend Alicia.


Purple Peruvian Fingerlings with
Juanchaina sauce and baby quails eggs
gorgeous presentation and delicious sauce
again made by the lovely Alicia.




Skirt Steak with Chimichurri on Crostinis

Angus Blu Burger Sliders
with Housemade Tamarind Ketchup,
Blue Cheese & Roasted Tomato Compote

there may have been a few more that are escaping me...

Dessert was the rivers of chocolate and homemade caramel sauce
with scottish shortbreads made by mum - and laid out to say "40"



and incredible black forest cake and roulades made by Claudia
lots of dippables and fruits. Guests were amazed and stuffed...
we were happy to be there and help out
in producing a memorable family celebration
and helping a fellow catersource buddy be able to enjoy with his family.

This whole party was a labor of love with
Deatch's parents, Margo and John and their
good friends of many years Helmut and Claudia,
helping out with all the kitchen prep . They finally realized how grueling the back work of catering can be - but a good time was had by all - despite their aching feet and backs


His young nieces even helped pass
even though we did have staff –
it was sweet




It's always great fun working with other
talented crazy caterers. Another catersource kudo !!!