Food, glorious food

My Mother-in-Law just told me not to scrimp on food, and a cousin told me it's better to have assigned seating. Planning a wedding is like being pregnant, anyone and everyone feels it's perfectly OK to touch your belly and ask you personal questions or give you their advice. Everyone wants to help you; making gift bags, or making the chuppa. I even got my sister into the act. She just sent me a drawing of the tree in her courtyard on the Upper East side of Manhattan. She is an artist, a beautiful artist who now does mostly needlepoint. If you are getting a gift from my sister, chances are it's a needlepoint pillow. Every single piece of stuffed furniture in my house is graced by one or more of her pillows. But back to the black and white tree. My plan is to put the names of the couple's ancestors on either side of the tree, and fashion it into a fan with the wedding program on the other side. Great, right? People can try and figure out what side of the tree they fell from while they wait for the ceremony to begin.

It can be overwhelming at times, all this help. But it's important to remember that it's offered with the best of intentions. For instance, my dear cousin's son-in-law is a caterer. He's really a great chef and had his own restaurant for a while. He has a winning personality and lives just an hour away. My husband said we should consider this relative/chef; after all, he's a member of the family. Even the bride was interested. But then again, she wanted a soup place in town to cater the wedding because they use local ingredients. Whenever I'd mention this to anyone, they'd try to hide their displeasure. "Oh, the soup place caters, really...." I even spoke with the soup-nazi himself, and he said to call him when it gets closer to the wedding and we could talk. So that was the end of that. The gallery uses Harvest Moon, and I first thought dinner would be in the gallery, remember? But ooops. It is the first home football game, and a holiday weekend and sorry, but they are already booked. I was keeping our relative in my pocket, but I didn't want to hire him simply because I wanted him to enjoy the wedding, and if anything went wrong.....well, I didn't want to jeopardize our family's friendship. I can only hope he understands. So I got serious about food, and I called three vendors.

The first faxed me a menu that read like a party I'd been to twenty years ago. She was out. The second was extremely tall and only slightly intimidating. We met over little bon bons with her assistant taking notes. She told me they were all inclusive, and was the first to give me pause about feeding everyone on a terrace. "I'm not saying it couldn't be done...," that was the line that added another line to my forehead. And no, botox wasn't an option. She showed me a menu she had designed for a similar wedding at the same place. I learned about little lamb chops, and she told me we'd need 150 cupcakes if we were having 120 people since they would be different flavors. Smart! Her company has rave reviews and I really liked her by the time I left, and felt I'd be in good hands. Then I didn't hear from her again. The third caterer was the charm. It was the wife of the chef of a beautiful small restaurant by the train tracks. We met before lunch service, after she'd dropped her children at the sitter. I first heard of them on NPR, nobody else knew that they catered. They are very into local, sustainable farms, and organic everything and as it turns out, they are close to the university hospital. My husband has eaten there many times, for business, and I made him take me to "L'etoile" for our anniversary. The shrimp and grits were divine.

Menu:
Traditional French cheese plate (to include reblochon because she loves it and our dog Buddha does too)
Grilled asparagus and carrots
Apple chutney over baked brie
Grilled beef fillet

Artisan breads
Salad L'etoile
Shrimp and Grits
Fall garden vegetarian plate
Apple cider donuts

and at the rooftop terrace:
Caramel crepes
Carter mountain apple bourbon bread pudding
Maple sugar candies
Anita Gupta's cupcakes (all 150 to include lavender for the bride, carrot cake for the groom and a combo of Bailey's Irish Cream and Guinness stout chocolate to represent their dogs' names).

Can you tell the bride spent a semester in Paris? Did you know she was born in the Berkshire Mountains and always loved those maple candies? Can you smell the down home southern country style cooking? Do you think it's enough? I was thinking maybe some chicken?