Jane and Diane are roommates in LA.  Jane has her own law firm and Diane was studying for the Bar exam, which I hear is terribly stressful.  With one lawyer, and another one in the making, it’s only natural for them to have a 3rd roommate, Jane’s cute dog, Ally Mc Beagle!

Jane was worried that Diane wouldn’t eat during her last stressful 2 weeks of studying, so as a gift, she decided to hire my services for a personal meal service.  I had a phone interview with her and she requested Korean or mostly Asian dishes, and maybe 1 or 2 dishes with whatever I wanted.  So I packed up my ingredients and headed out to their apartment to cook up a storm.

I decided to make things like soba noodle salad, mapo tofu, shitake mushroom fried rice, pesto pasta with sausage, green beans and peppers, hot pepper paste baked chicken, egg-dipped meat patties, and “mook gook” (a Korean radish soup).

I did everything in a little over 5 hours and with some nice classical instrumental music playing in the background.  I figured they keep the music on to keep their dog company while they’re at work or out studying.  It made cooking such a relaxing and joyful experience.

I made sure to store everything in heat-proof containers (some they already had, some I provided).  Then I labeled all the food with a brief description, reheating instructions and serving suggestions.

Joe and my little coworker for the day kept me entertained.  Those who know me know how much I LOVE dogs, so Ally Mc Beagle definitely made me happy.  She hovered near my feet all day, and kept Joe and me company.

She was also an exceptional model, as you can tell.

It’s a hard knock life, huh Ally?

I finished and Joe helped me pack it all up.  We headed down to UCLA to see the campus for fun before we met up with my friend for dinner in Japan Town.

Jane texted me that night to tell me that she and Diane thoroughly enjoyed the food.  They ended up having so much food leftover that week that Jane had to bring it into the office to share.  I just hope Diane was less stressed, well-fed and aced the Bar!

julie

Kaitlynn contacted me to ask if I was available to cater her friend, Soomi’s baby shower, but the best part was that she found me through facebook.  Thank you creators of Facebook for allowing me to advertise for free!  Apparently she asked on her wall if anyone knew a caterer and someone suggested she seek my services… so thank you also to the mystery person who recommended me!

There wasn’t much of a theme to this shower in terms of food except that Kaitlynn took one look at my menu and wanted one of everything…. literally, at least one item in each category.

She opted to go with a plan that was mainly or mostly appetizers with no dessert since she was planning on buying a cake…and I was happy to provide that.  When I arrived at Soomi’s house, right away, I noticed she had a great kitchen with a tall curved counter.  So we thought it would be dramatic and make the most sense to present all the food there.

Therefore, I ended up doing quite the opposite of what I normally do.  I set up my prep station all over her formal dining room table, worked out of there and transferred the finished platters to the kitchen.  This was also because Soomi had some nice friends already working in the kitchen who wanted to provide some dishes of their own like pasta salad, deviled eggs and pb & j sandwiches for the kids.  Let me just say, in the end, it was a lot of delicious food!

There was a mini heat wave around this time and the day I met up with Kaitlynn at Starbucks was no exception.  So when planning the menu, she mentioned it might be nice to have some cold “refreshing” appetizers.

I knew that my traditional zucchini cups could be done with a twist.  I cooked them, chilled them and filled them with a yellow rice salad with capers, vinaigrette and freshly homemade pickled red cabbage.

And of course no baby shower is complete without my homemade sparkling punch with juicy citrus.

These broiled honey wings were sticky, but delicious and the perfect meaty bite.  I think especially the men at the shower appreciated having something less delicate there!

Once again, the food busted off the table and the drinks and desserts had to be placed elsewhere.  Kaitlynn was so great to work with and she was even nice enough to give me a generous tip with a nice card.  Thanks again, Kaitlynn!

Of course Joe was there helping me plate, wash dishes and take photographs.  I had to include this picture in the blog because he’s also the one who designed these cards and I wanted to give him credit for all the work he does in helping the business grow.

julie