Menus and Bees. Oh my.

Last weekend, my boss, (whom we'll call Mothra - because her personality is a cross between the smarts of Martha Stewart and the confidence and power of Oprah) and I had a good conversation about my goals and aspirations for where I want to be and what it'll take to get there. She encouraged me to make a 3-5 year plan and what steps it'd take to get there. She also explained to me that one thing that she does repeatedly on a daily basis is create menus for clients - I actually had the opportunity to dabble in menu writing, but had a difficult time with it. So, I picked her mind for a while about what she does when considering what to plan for clients. Here are a few things that she mentioned that I feel are noteworthy:

• Group size: Will an elaborate dessert and plating design be cost effective (for labor and product) if the size of the party is a considerable amount? Will a simple dessert be adequate for a small group?
  
• Food knowledge: Will the client appreciate seasonal, organic ingredients or are they more happy with a generic McTGIappleday's slice of cheesecake with a dollop of whipped cream and cut strawberries? (Seriously though - what would possess someone to settle for a dollop? Unacceptable!)
  
• Season: Summer desserts are lighter and more refreshing, where fall and winter desserts tend to be more rich and decadent.
• Cost: Let's be real. Are they cheap??
  
• Demographic: Though not a huge factor, but definitely something to consider. A group of women may opt for a more healthy dessert, where men may not really care (but do they ever care? Am I right, ladies? Am I right?...Wait...)
  

The key is understanding the clients style as well as taking into consideration the food that will go before it. This information tends to be especially helpful when planning banquet events as parties ranging from 12 to 1000 will be served full courses - sometimes the desserts will be plated, sometimes it'll be buffet style.

I've actually been working with the banquet desserts over the last couple of months, so it's been a good experience to see how the desserts are handled for these events more extensively. Regarding the menu writing process, I actually had the opportunity to plan a restaurant dessert menu for our hotels restaurant. Throughout the process, I worked side by side with co-worker, (whom we'll call MFK - because her passion of food reminds me of the great M.F.K Fisher) and it was a great experience. But, oh God, how I struggled. At the time I was trying to create ideas, I was asked by Mothra what my comfort food was... and I couldn't think of anything. It was pathetic and it made me doubt myself as even being a part of the culinary world. Truth of the matter is, I do love food, I do have a passion for it (and, truly, sometimes Mothra intimidates me.)

All in all, the experience with MFK was great, but Mothra is incredibly encouraging of me taking more of a lead on this next menu change (we change the menus to adapt with seasonality of the foods we use - which results in incredibly fresh and delicious menu items). So in what will be a matter of weeks, I imagine, I will be taking charge in a menu change. I'll be writing more about the process as that develops.

In other news, how f*cking incredible are bees?! I was doing research for a volunteer project that the pastry shop takes part in every other month and the theme of the event is honey. So last night, I was doing some research to get to know a little bit more about bees and honey and I came across a fantastic website. If you can get past the horde of random advertisements, this website has fantastic information about honey and bees. Did you know that bees have polarized vision? Not only that, but when a bee finds good pollen, it flies back to the hive and communicates where the good pollen is by busting out a 'bee dance'. This isn't any ol' bee dance, my friends, this dance tells where the pollen is in relation to the suns current position as well as how far away the pollen is. Seriously? That is awesome. Check this video out:



(Ok, a small but big bit of inaccurate information is that the worker bees are female not male like the announcer would have you believe - Girl Power!) Beside the fact that the video is a little 8th grade biology, it is some fascinating stuff. Suffice to say, I have a new appreciation for honey and bees - and yes, plan to use it in my upcoming dessert menu.