Help with Big Company BBQ
- Thread starter elmo
- Start date
Just coming across this today - what an enthralling read! As someone mentioned before - better than any reality tv show. Feeling real bad for elmo and the position he has been put in, but it seems that with all the advice he's gotten from KK that he may actually enjoy the day. Here's hoping he does, and for that matter gets some well desrved props from his co-workers and management.
We're all pulling for you elmo, and we're all looking forward to hearing how this all comes out.
Peter
We're all pulling for you elmo, and we're all looking forward to hearing how this all comes out.
Peter
Pete, from what Elmo has told us, I'd be very surprised if he'll get much praise from the people he works with, even if he done an excellent job...they sound like they are a dictative bunch of ungrateful and unappreciative losers. I really do hope he gets a lot of credit and thankyous and good comments but if he doesn't, and if that were me, I'd tell them I won't be doing it anymore..get some other sucker!!
Kevin K,we all appreciate how you done so much to help Elmo and gave him the inspiration to give it a real good go...hats off to you sir.
Cheers
Davo
Kevin K,we all appreciate how you done so much to help Elmo and gave him the inspiration to give it a real good go...hats off to you sir.
Cheers
Davo
PaulFisher
TVWBB Super Fan
Elmo, the suspense is killing me! How'd it turn out?? Kevin, like someone else said, my hats off to you as well. In reading your posts in this thread and others you are a terrific resource and I appreciate your knowledge.
Chris Sully
TVWBB Member
I hope they didn't eat Elmo
Ron G.
TVWBB Wizard
Not to get too high on my soap-box, but:
This post should serve as a valuable lesson to all of us who may find ourselves in a similar situation (I in no way intend to "rip" on Elmo - something like this could happen to almost any of us - including the "semi-professional" cooks/caterers among us):
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI> KNOW YOUR LIMITATIONS
<LI>If you're going to "do a favor" like this, YOU NEED TO MAINTAIN CONTROL
<LI>If your co-workers want / demand something that is too far outside of your "comfort zone", make them aware of this fact, and recommend that they consider a professional caterer (at least, to handle "tricky parts" that they demand), do a "dry-run" ahead of time, or exercise your right to back-out[/list]
This post should serve as a valuable lesson to all of us who may find ourselves in a similar situation (I in no way intend to "rip" on Elmo - something like this could happen to almost any of us - including the "semi-professional" cooks/caterers among us):
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI> KNOW YOUR LIMITATIONS
<LI>If you're going to "do a favor" like this, YOU NEED TO MAINTAIN CONTROL
<LI>If your co-workers want / demand something that is too far outside of your "comfort zone", make them aware of this fact, and recommend that they consider a professional caterer (at least, to handle "tricky parts" that they demand), do a "dry-run" ahead of time, or exercise your right to back-out[/list]
Ron, most of what you say I agree 100% but as far as backing out, I don't think poor ol' Elmo had much of a say in that..he was nominated and he had demands placed on him to make this right for the company and from what I gather, employment in the US is still very slow and he probably didn't want to risk it..i don't blame him for that.It also sounded like his Management weren't the only ones who wanted to have their authority stamped on this occassion as well.It's definately past the usual staff BBQ when you're inviting clients around.
Like everyone else here, hopes and prays everything went ok, he is awfully quiet after the event...hope he still has his job.
We all wait in anticipation Elmo...put us out of our misery!!
PS. Elmo..did you get to use the TAPE?
Cheers
Like everyone else here, hopes and prays everything went ok, he is awfully quiet after the event...hope he still has his job.
We all wait in anticipation Elmo...put us out of our misery!!
PS. Elmo..did you get to use the TAPE?
Cheers
Sorry guys for not writing yesterday night after the BBQ. I was super tired and went straight to bed. I went to work at 6 AM and left at 9 pm, after the BBQ. Today, as usual, i wasnt able to reply from work because of our firewall restriction.
So before i begin telling the story of what happened yesterday night, i want to take a moment to thank KK & all of you great guys who helped me with tips and advice, you guys are awesome, thanks so much.
I took pics mostly of food before BBQ because once BBQ started i was streesed and forgot about camera. I still dont have pics because they are on my colleague's camera and waiting for him to send them to me so i can post them here
So here is what happened in detail. I will begin from the start of the day and will say final outcome at the end but no cheating, you have to read from beginning and cant skip to the end
I arrived at work yesterday at 6 am and started marinating the strip loin roast, shrimps, rack of lamb & tuna steaks.
My helper came in at 8 am so i asked him to clean the new serving platters we bought and to wash the fresh basil and herbs, grapes and tomatoes. He is a colleague of mine who was assigned to help me the whole day, until BBQ ends.
We set up the wsm outside and put the roast on at 10:15 am with minion method and had my maeverik wireless thermometer hooked up. Set max temp at 130 for meat and had the dry cooler ready like KK adviced.
After this, i concentrated on preparing the salmon rolls and cold entrees. We had brie, 2 yrs old cheddar, and bociinio (not sure if i said it right) cheese cut into small pieces with tomatoes and grapes and olives on toothpicks.
I had at one point 2 coworkers helping me out with the cutting because they had nothing else to do and my colleague who was in charge of BBQ came in kitchen a few times and did not like it that many people are helping me and how my helper would take off once in a while. I tried to just let it go and concentrate on the food.
This annoying lady who complained about food last BBQ came in and started giving me orders while i was rolling the salmon rolls. She started saying that i have to put more cream cheese in tortilla and not to put arugula, and how i am not cutting it right, bla bla bla. She was very annoying but again, i tried to refocus on food.
So at about 12:15 pm, the wireless thermometer was saying that the roast was now at 130F internal temp. I automatically though it was impossible as technically at 250F, this 5.25 kg roast should take about 5 hrs or more to cook. So i ignored this thinking i might have put probe in a bad location in meat. While meat was on my WSM outside, I was worried about people opening cover while i was not there or anyone smashing or scratching my baby so i was going out checking on it every about 30 mins. I kept telling people to stay away from my smoker lol
Now, at 2 pm (one hr away from bbq), we started taking the stuff out and at that point, all cold food was ready and raw food marinated.
My helper started freaking out when BBQ time came because me and 3 other colleagues were asking him to do things and giving him orders. I explained to him calmly that he is supposed to be helping me ONLY the whole day.
I asked him to do some stuff once in a while and he would be in his own little world so i had to do things myself to get it done. He was clueless when i asked him to put water in my electric steamer and to start the first batch of corn. He overfilled steamer and ignored the max line written on it.
So it is now like 3:30 pm and i still did not begin to BBQ anything on grill because the tables outside for food and electricity for steamer and water access were not prepared for me. Some annoying coworkers showed up early and started making stupid conversations with me and dumb jokes. I jut nodded and said yeah as if i understood. One guy talked low and couldnt hear anything and he started getting upset because i told him i dont understand what he was saying.
So Finally, things are better so i had a small Broil King gaser, which company owns and had my weber Q on its left and wsm on its right.
I checked the roast at about this time and almost got a heart attack when another digital thermometer read 190F for internal temp and the size of meat shrank a lot. It turned out that maverik probe was right but until now, i cant understand how the roast reached 130F in about 2 hrs ONLY while smoker was running about 250 - 275F?????? So i was very disappointed that this beautiful Angus AAA piece of meat was way overcooked. I tried to regain myself together, took it out to let it cool and started adding the mini burgers on Broil King Grill. Wanted to light my Q for hot dogs but it wont light up. I think my started is no longer good.
At this point, the wind got strong and BK BBQ was about to flip over with burgers inside but my helper caught it halfway. It is stored in warehouse where the guys smash it with equipment and the back wheels were gone and it was not very stable.
At this point, i was just trying to breathe in and out and relax.
I told my helper to take out the first batch of cold entrees, which helped a lot to keep people eating a bit and not complain about hot food not being ready.
KK's advice about two serving table next to each other was very good so people can hang around it and away from me a bit.
Mini burgers came out great and people liked how cute they looked and i was told they were good tasting. Grilled some Naan bread and people ate that too.
Started cutting that poor little piece of roast which had a beautiful smoke rink but was dry and very brown inside. We decaorated small pieces with some blue cheese and an olive and to my surprise, people said it was not bad. Apparently, these people like their food super well done. One guy told me it was 7 on 10, which is not bad for a 3 hrs overcooked piece of meat.
I had my rack of lamb ready at this point, off smoker and seared on grill. It only took like 45 mins to reach internal temp of 135F at a smoker temp of 250F. They were still pink inside when i carved them but some people did not like that and said it was not well done enough. To that, I just replied with "i cant please everyone" and that it is not supposed to be too well done and dry and that professionally, in restaurants, it is served slightly pink.
Good thing we had a professional bar tender on the scene so that people get busy a bit with him and stay away from me a bit.
By the way, my chef jacket was great, and i loved it.
So at around 5 pm, i did tuna steaks followed by shrimp, then another round of mini burgers, then more tuna and shrimp. It also started to rain on/off at some point but thanks God, it did not rain hard.
I did a fresh special sauce for the Tuna in advance and seared them on high for a bit and cut them up into small pieces with toothpicks. Some of that sauce on top with small piece pf parsely and voila. It was raw in middle and looked great. Most people liked them
For the shrimp, I did not even get a chance to prepare serving platter because people were picking them up fast one by one as i was organizing them and arranging them on the plate. They were big nice butterfly quality ones and i was told by one person that i was the best chef in the world after eating one. I hope it was not the effect of the alcohol on him lol
I brushed them two times with butter while they were on grill and this, i believe, gave them the very nice taste.
At about 6 pm, two people got drunk and started dancing and saying crazy stuff which was pretty entertaining. That annoying lady got drunk and started dancing lol.
We started putting things away at about 7:15 pm and overall, it was very stressful and a bit of a disaster for first hr but after that, it went great. The shrimp and Tuna steaks with special sauce were a big hit. I cant take credit for sauce by the way because i got it from a chef that had a video on youtube
Mini burgers were also different and looked cool on the serving platter. Some guests also loved the lamb and took like 4 of them.
I learned many things from this experience like:
- Need for chafers next time
- Need a helper that wont freak out on me
- Need to prepare and start a bit earlier
- Do not ignore the Maverik temp for meat
- better to stick with less better things on meu to keep it simple
- you cant please everyone
- not all guests come early so do not cook all of the same type of food at beginning. Leave some of each type to be cooked later for those coming later
- WSM is great to give a WOW image to a BBQ and is great helper that wont complain and do the job on its own with very little interruption or adjustment. A couple of guests asked about it and were impressed by it. One guy made fun of it but i would be surprised if this guy knows to cook anything other than eggs.
- need to control crowd and people stealing food off the chef's serving plate
The president liked it and told me good job and i am happy we did not waste much food. Most leftovers were not expensive items like salad. colleague who was in charge with me of the BBQ started to tell me stupid things and analyzing what went wrong and how i should have led my helper better so that he wont freak out but i tried to listen from one ear and let it go out the other. He overall liked the BBQ too but like usual, he always has his special comments.
The president did or my colleague did not say anything since yesterday about next month BBQ and how they want it to be and i did not ask either.
Two weeks ago, the president said that if this one goes well, that he will invite customers to the September one and that is on top of the suppliers that we invited to this one. If this happens, we are talking about another 25 guests to add or easily more.
For now, i just want to relax a bit and enjoy another strip loin roast that i bought today on my way home. This time, i got it for home. I want to cut it into steaks and grill it this time.
I wrote so much lol
elmo
So before i begin telling the story of what happened yesterday night, i want to take a moment to thank KK & all of you great guys who helped me with tips and advice, you guys are awesome, thanks so much.
I took pics mostly of food before BBQ because once BBQ started i was streesed and forgot about camera. I still dont have pics because they are on my colleague's camera and waiting for him to send them to me so i can post them here
So here is what happened in detail. I will begin from the start of the day and will say final outcome at the end but no cheating, you have to read from beginning and cant skip to the end
I arrived at work yesterday at 6 am and started marinating the strip loin roast, shrimps, rack of lamb & tuna steaks.
My helper came in at 8 am so i asked him to clean the new serving platters we bought and to wash the fresh basil and herbs, grapes and tomatoes. He is a colleague of mine who was assigned to help me the whole day, until BBQ ends.
We set up the wsm outside and put the roast on at 10:15 am with minion method and had my maeverik wireless thermometer hooked up. Set max temp at 130 for meat and had the dry cooler ready like KK adviced.
After this, i concentrated on preparing the salmon rolls and cold entrees. We had brie, 2 yrs old cheddar, and bociinio (not sure if i said it right) cheese cut into small pieces with tomatoes and grapes and olives on toothpicks.
I had at one point 2 coworkers helping me out with the cutting because they had nothing else to do and my colleague who was in charge of BBQ came in kitchen a few times and did not like it that many people are helping me and how my helper would take off once in a while. I tried to just let it go and concentrate on the food.
This annoying lady who complained about food last BBQ came in and started giving me orders while i was rolling the salmon rolls. She started saying that i have to put more cream cheese in tortilla and not to put arugula, and how i am not cutting it right, bla bla bla. She was very annoying but again, i tried to refocus on food.
So at about 12:15 pm, the wireless thermometer was saying that the roast was now at 130F internal temp. I automatically though it was impossible as technically at 250F, this 5.25 kg roast should take about 5 hrs or more to cook. So i ignored this thinking i might have put probe in a bad location in meat. While meat was on my WSM outside, I was worried about people opening cover while i was not there or anyone smashing or scratching my baby so i was going out checking on it every about 30 mins. I kept telling people to stay away from my smoker lol
Now, at 2 pm (one hr away from bbq), we started taking the stuff out and at that point, all cold food was ready and raw food marinated.
My helper started freaking out when BBQ time came because me and 3 other colleagues were asking him to do things and giving him orders. I explained to him calmly that he is supposed to be helping me ONLY the whole day.
I asked him to do some stuff once in a while and he would be in his own little world so i had to do things myself to get it done. He was clueless when i asked him to put water in my electric steamer and to start the first batch of corn. He overfilled steamer and ignored the max line written on it.
So it is now like 3:30 pm and i still did not begin to BBQ anything on grill because the tables outside for food and electricity for steamer and water access were not prepared for me. Some annoying coworkers showed up early and started making stupid conversations with me and dumb jokes. I jut nodded and said yeah as if i understood. One guy talked low and couldnt hear anything and he started getting upset because i told him i dont understand what he was saying.
So Finally, things are better so i had a small Broil King gaser, which company owns and had my weber Q on its left and wsm on its right.
I checked the roast at about this time and almost got a heart attack when another digital thermometer read 190F for internal temp and the size of meat shrank a lot. It turned out that maverik probe was right but until now, i cant understand how the roast reached 130F in about 2 hrs ONLY while smoker was running about 250 - 275F?????? So i was very disappointed that this beautiful Angus AAA piece of meat was way overcooked. I tried to regain myself together, took it out to let it cool and started adding the mini burgers on Broil King Grill. Wanted to light my Q for hot dogs but it wont light up. I think my started is no longer good.
At this point, the wind got strong and BK BBQ was about to flip over with burgers inside but my helper caught it halfway. It is stored in warehouse where the guys smash it with equipment and the back wheels were gone and it was not very stable.
At this point, i was just trying to breathe in and out and relax.
I told my helper to take out the first batch of cold entrees, which helped a lot to keep people eating a bit and not complain about hot food not being ready.
KK's advice about two serving table next to each other was very good so people can hang around it and away from me a bit.
Mini burgers came out great and people liked how cute they looked and i was told they were good tasting. Grilled some Naan bread and people ate that too.
Started cutting that poor little piece of roast which had a beautiful smoke rink but was dry and very brown inside. We decaorated small pieces with some blue cheese and an olive and to my surprise, people said it was not bad. Apparently, these people like their food super well done. One guy told me it was 7 on 10, which is not bad for a 3 hrs overcooked piece of meat.
I had my rack of lamb ready at this point, off smoker and seared on grill. It only took like 45 mins to reach internal temp of 135F at a smoker temp of 250F. They were still pink inside when i carved them but some people did not like that and said it was not well done enough. To that, I just replied with "i cant please everyone" and that it is not supposed to be too well done and dry and that professionally, in restaurants, it is served slightly pink.
Good thing we had a professional bar tender on the scene so that people get busy a bit with him and stay away from me a bit.
By the way, my chef jacket was great, and i loved it.
So at around 5 pm, i did tuna steaks followed by shrimp, then another round of mini burgers, then more tuna and shrimp. It also started to rain on/off at some point but thanks God, it did not rain hard.
I did a fresh special sauce for the Tuna in advance and seared them on high for a bit and cut them up into small pieces with toothpicks. Some of that sauce on top with small piece pf parsely and voila. It was raw in middle and looked great. Most people liked them
For the shrimp, I did not even get a chance to prepare serving platter because people were picking them up fast one by one as i was organizing them and arranging them on the plate. They were big nice butterfly quality ones and i was told by one person that i was the best chef in the world after eating one. I hope it was not the effect of the alcohol on him lol
I brushed them two times with butter while they were on grill and this, i believe, gave them the very nice taste.
At about 6 pm, two people got drunk and started dancing and saying crazy stuff which was pretty entertaining. That annoying lady got drunk and started dancing lol.
We started putting things away at about 7:15 pm and overall, it was very stressful and a bit of a disaster for first hr but after that, it went great. The shrimp and Tuna steaks with special sauce were a big hit. I cant take credit for sauce by the way because i got it from a chef that had a video on youtube
I learned many things from this experience like:
- Need for chafers next time
- Need a helper that wont freak out on me
- Need to prepare and start a bit earlier
- Do not ignore the Maverik temp for meat
- better to stick with less better things on meu to keep it simple
- you cant please everyone
- not all guests come early so do not cook all of the same type of food at beginning. Leave some of each type to be cooked later for those coming later
- WSM is great to give a WOW image to a BBQ and is great helper that wont complain and do the job on its own with very little interruption or adjustment. A couple of guests asked about it and were impressed by it. One guy made fun of it but i would be surprised if this guy knows to cook anything other than eggs.
- need to control crowd and people stealing food off the chef's serving plate
The president liked it and told me good job and i am happy we did not waste much food. Most leftovers were not expensive items like salad. colleague who was in charge with me of the BBQ started to tell me stupid things and analyzing what went wrong and how i should have led my helper better so that he wont freak out but i tried to listen from one ear and let it go out the other. He overall liked the BBQ too but like usual, he always has his special comments.
The president did or my colleague did not say anything since yesterday about next month BBQ and how they want it to be and i did not ask either.
Two weeks ago, the president said that if this one goes well, that he will invite customers to the September one and that is on top of the suppliers that we invited to this one. If this happens, we are talking about another 25 guests to add or easily more.
For now, i just want to relax a bit and enjoy another strip loin roast that i bought today on my way home. This time, i got it for home. I want to cut it into steaks and grill it this time.
I wrote so much lol
elmo
JimK
TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
Sounds like you did quite well, elmo and learned how to make the next one better. Congratulations.
One thing I've learned being in management: you'll never make everyone happy. But if you can make most people happy, you'll be very successful. It sounds like you made most people happy, and that is a solid success. Pat yourself on the back, enjoy a cold one, and reminisce about your succesful catering experience. Next time, tell them you should get Friday off with pay.
One thing I've learned being in management: you'll never make everyone happy. But if you can make most people happy, you'll be very successful. It sounds like you made most people happy, and that is a solid success. Pat yourself on the back, enjoy a cold one, and reminisce about your succesful catering experience. Next time, tell them you should get Friday off with pay.
ELMO! Congrats! Wow sounds like it was a crazy day as expected and some things did happen as you said they would. I'm sorry dude if it was me, that lady that was a pain last time cames in to me and starts ordering me around I would have stopped doing what I was doing and told her to get out of my kitchen or told her to come back here and cook and when she started dancing around that I would have told her to shut up!
Anyway, great job and yeah there is no way to ever please anyone. The day you do that is the day you become quiet wealthy!
Anyway, great job and yeah there is no way to ever please anyone. The day you do that is the day you become quiet wealthy!