If you are like me, when you are organizing an event, you expect it to go smoothly. So what happens when it doesn’t?
I was faced with this challenge over the weekend as an event I was catering faced certain disaster. Living in the south means summer thunderstorms. We have definitely had our share of them this season, so watching the winds pick up was no big deal. My plans were simple: dinner for 45 celebrating their 30 year class reunion. The menu of grilled honey-mustard chicken and beef kabobs had been decided on with a dessert buffet consisting of assorted miniature cupcakes. Everything was going smoothly and time was looking good as I cooked and organized everything on Saturday, then the storm hit!
Two and one half hours before dinner was to be served heavy rains, and high winds blew through and as I was in the middle of making chocolate icing and boiling potatoes to mash, we lost power! With a tree down on the lines fifty yards from the house, we weren’t getting power back for a while.
I am prone to panicking, but for some reason I didn’t.I didn’t even panic when I knocked the bottle of apple cider vinegar off of the cabinet and busted it all over the kitchen floor 15 minutes later, which was the base for the sauce that was to go on my chicken.
Audley? He panicked enough for both of us and I still remained calm, which is very uncharacteristic of me. I’m still not sure what had possessed me!
What was there to lose besides my pride? This was an important night for me …. it was the first time that I was doing an entire dinner and not just a cake for someone.
What’s a lady to do?
**First, don’t panic. All panicking will do is stress you out more, make you angry and very short-tempered.
**Second, change your focus. Instead of worrying about what you can’t do, concentrate on what you can! With no power, chocolate icing was no longer an option, so I settled with two flavors and went to icing cupcakes. Since I destroyed the vinegar based for my honey-mustard sauce, I hit the herb cabinet (flashlight in hand) and came up with a new game plan, which was actually better than the original!
**Third, do what you can. Since the potatoes were already boiling, I covered the pan and left them to finish cooking on the stove top. I also went ahead and assembled the kebobs. Having some of the little things out of the way made it easy to focus on the big picture.
**And fourth, cross your fingers and hope for the best. If no one else knows your crisis, they most likely won’t know that you even had issues!While the actual event planner knew we had the power issue, no one else knew anything different and dinner was a big hit!
Have you ever been in this situation? What would you have done?
As for the cupcakes I served? You must stop by later this week as I share the most delicious recipe for White Velvet CupCakes and Earl Gray icing!
Oh my, they were fabulous!
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Fiddle Dee Dee by Jennifer Jones 
When planning an outdoor event, always have a Plan B – what are we going to do if it rains?
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When I am planning an event I do as much of the prep work as I can well ahead of time. But I have cooked things on our bbq when out power went out. 🙂
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you are amazing to have pulled that huge dinner
off in the midst of a storm and lost ingredients.
i am so excited to see the white velvet cupcake
recipe, b/c red velvet cake is my al time
favorite!
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Yummy! Way to go Jen!!! I can't say as I've been in quite a pickle like that, but I agree, it doesn't do any good to stress over it! Just go with the flow and improvise.
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