Where Am I Needed?

Today I worked at a wedding for 219 guests. I arrived early as usual, only to find my coworkers hadn’t arrived yet, so I familiarized myself with the function sheets. There were no canapés required for the arrival reception at either today or tomorrow’s wedding, and no pavlovas for dessert either. So that alone cut back on a lot of prep work. First thing I was taken over to the marquee to work there. I arranged the dessert plated with doilies, plated the steaks, and picked parsley. Then chef told me to go back to the castle for lunch, which was really good – a masala vegetable mixture with spiced couscous. I checked if anyone needed help here, but they said no, so I headed back over to the marquee. I prepared some salad, then was taken back to the castle to make a big batch of crumble mixture for tomorrow’s dessert. At the castle, we discovered we already had enough crumble mixture, so they asked me to make some pesto while they figured out what else I could do, then, as predicted (and as I wanted), the breakfast chef asked me to make a batch of scones and a batch of shortbread for him.

So I went to work alone on my pastries again, by now I am getting much better and more efficient at making the shortbread and scones that we always seem to be running out of. It was just a bit frustrating that there was not much work at all to do – sounds like a dream, but really it gets quite boring and I hate feeling like I am not needed. After I finished making the pastries, I gave the pastry kitchen a good cleaning before heading back to the marquee for the wedding service.

Tonight’s menu was as follows:
Canapés: Shortbread Cookies, tea and coffee
Starter: Confit Duck and Wild Mushroom Terrine, spiced pear chutney, balsamic and sherry reduction 
Vegetarian: Salad of Tomato and Mozzarella, basil pesto, balsamic dressing
Bread: Wheat bread, raisin rolls, sesame seeded rolls, white rolls, caraway rolls, red pepper rolls
Soup:  Cream of Potato and Leek, Truffle Oil
Sorbet: Champagne
Main Course Option #1 – Beef: Sirloin Steak cooked medium-well, celeriac purée, fondant potato, braised shallot, rich red wine jus
Main Course Option #2 – Fish: Grilled Salmon, salad of fennel marinated in lemon, baby spinach, vierge dressing
Main Course Option #3 – Vegetarian: Cashel and Blue Cheese Tart with Mediterranean vegetables
Side Dishes: Roast Baby Potatoes, and Roast carrots, onions, parsnip, and turnip.
Dessert: Dark Chocolate and Orange Mousse, praline ice cream
Petit Fours: madeleines, cranberry white fudge, fruit jellies, flaked white chocolate truffles, Belgian dark chocolate truffles
Evening Buffet: Fish and Chip Cones, wedding cake

Upon returning to the lodge to gather my stuff, I met one of the chefs who is known for his creative specials. I had sent him the photos of my dessert specials, since he was off those days. He showed me today’s dessert special that he made: strawberry panna cotta with vanilla ice cream and white chocolate strawberry. He even let me have one to sample, which was a nice treat, even after having a chocolate mousse at the wedding.

Strawberry panna cotta