A Thematic Exercise

I have been given the task of coming up with monthly food specials for one of our sites. I wanted the food that we choose to serve to be under the umbrella of some theme related to the month. Obviously, December is Christmas and March is St. Patrick's Day and February is Valentine's Day but I wanted to either ignore these things totally or put a new spin on them. Since, its kinda hard to ignore bug holidays I opted to put a spin on my themes. I found this amazing website that lists all the observances and national holidays by month. They have all the fun made up days as well as the awarness days such as Breast Cancer, Leukemia and AIDS/HIV. I found out that November is actually National American Indian Heritage Month, "I am so Thankful" Month and National Diabetes Month. I tired to think of foods and themes that would correlate to the month in a fun exciting way. I actually chose the National American Indian Month theme because, well I never knew that before and i'm sure a lot of other people didn't either. I remember in elementary school learning about new cultures and being able to taste their foods and make authentic crafts- this was all very exciting to me then, so why wouldn't it be now. So I thought about Native American foods and went from there. It's funny how much life really revolves around food. People expect food to be present at any event one gives and it is a huge disapointment if one, there isn't any or two, its gross. I learned from my life experience, which was confirmed when I began working at Event Solutions, that not everyone has had the experience of great food. I'm lucky to have been born to a mother who has natural cooking ability, but hey not everyone has been so lucky. That's why when planning these monthly events, I tried to think of simple yet exquisite dishes that Chef Donovan could prepare to really wow our clients. My two favorite ideas were "A Chocolate Covered Christmas" and "An April Tea Party." I thought they were fun and when I started planning the menu I began to feel my stomach rumble. I can't wait to see what comes of it.
Also, we had an appetizer tasting today with fantastic cherry tomatoes filled with cream cheese, artichoke tappenade on tiny pieces of toast and ginger marinated chicken skewers. The clients loved the food and went ahead and booked with us... but now they want tortillas made onsite for their international buffet. Tortillas are really hard to make and we don't have the machine to do... but our company policy is, "Of Course" so we will find a way.

crystal p smith
event solutions
crystal@eventsolutions.com
Southern California Event Planning