The Afternoon of December 18, 2009 I received a call from Actress Tasha Smith about catering a Christmas/Holiday party for her and Tisha Campbell-Martin. Well of course I was excited that these two beautiful women contacted me to cook for them. Actually a month before this I catered a party for Celeb Designer Nikki Chu and Tasha Smith was supposed to be one of the guest, but her schedule didn't allow her to come and be apart of the festivities that evening, but she did inquire to Nikki that if the food is good to get her my number for a party she was doing a week after. So that week after party never happened which brings this story up to date now.
After receiving a few messages from Tasha I finally got a hold of her on the phone. It was funny because as soon as we started conversing it was like we knew each other for years. She asked me could I do a party for them on December 23rd, nevermind that I had a flight reservation that was leaving on December 22nd to go back to Cleveland to be with my Mom and brother for the holidays.
This was a huge dilemma for me, because I really wanted to do this party not only for the mere fact that it was two well known actresses, but also for the clientele that was expected to arrive for the party. The only problem I had was the issue of changing my flight so I could leave on Christmas Eve!!! Yeah right is the same thing I was thinking and Tasha sympathized with me over this issue as well, so she just said well maybe we can do something else together in the future. Well since I don't have to much faith in the future these days I agreed to attempt to change my flight and see what happens. We both figured if it's in God's plan for this party to happen then it would happen.
Immediately after hanging up with Ms. Smith I was on the phone with United Airlines and explained that I wanted to change my departure date and when the customer service rep asked me the new date I hesitated and said "Um Dec. 24th". Now i'm thinking this is never going to happen, but 2 minutes later she came back on the line to let me know that it was changed without any extra charge. I guess it was in God's plan! The only glitch is that immediately after the party I would be heading to the airport to catch a 7am flight.
After the handling of the flight scheduling now it was time to coordinate with the hostesses.
Tasha and I met at Tisha's home to talk over staging choices for the food and desserts. The home was nestled in a lovely gated community in the deep west valley with pristine views and remarkable architecture.
We decided to setup the food in a room that utilizes the great views of the mountain scenery and at night it would illuminate withe the twikle of light that fflickered in the background from the other houses. Although I wanted to put the food in the kitchen so that the food would be for accesible to the people at the party. Now after that decision made and I gave them the price quote we decided i would be at the house aroune 7:30 or 8pm.
The menu will consist of:
Tilapia Pinwheels, Chicken Mole', Osso Bucco, Cajun Mac and Cheese, Ginger Vanilla Carrots, Curried Brown Rice w/Cranberries, Baby Green Salad, Assorted Fruit Salad, Red Velvet Rum Cake, Triple Chocolate Bread Pudding w/Jack Daniel Sauce.
Now since I had a couple of days to put everything together I took my time with the shopping and prep work, until the day after when Tasha called me to let me know that a monkey wrench has been thrown into the whole plan that we put together. Instead of the original guestlist of 30 - 40 ppl it has now doubled to about 85ppl because I was told Tisha's husband Dwayne Martin ended up inviting more people to the party than we anticipated which meant now I had to step up my pace and go buy more food to feed these hungry people. It was a tricky task to double this food in one day, but of course in true Lovejoy fashion i buckeled down an made it happen.
So on the day of the party I started cooking at 7am and planned on finishing around 5pm after which I would load the food in the car and head to Tisha's house to set up for the big night. Well I finished cooking and loaded all the food and equipment in the car and proceeded to the freeway for my 30 min. drive to Tisha and Tasha's party.
Of course I would think that this drive was gonna be so easy on Dec 23rd, but I was sadly mistaken about this fact because when I pulled on to the freeway it was bumper to bumper traffic and the cars were moving at 4 maybe 5 mph and this lasted for two hours straight. During my freeway crawl from my kitchen downtown to Northridge i missed atleast 3 calls from Tasha Smith so I called her back asap to let her know I was running about and hour behind schedule and she let me know it was cool because traffic was crazy everywhere which gave me some relief but I still was irritated that I'm showing up late for a gig which has never happened to me before.
Finally I remembered I could take the 118 west from the 405 south and hopefully make it in time to serve dessert since i'm already now going on an hour and a half late. In my defense traffic was the worst i've seen it in years with cars creepin at 5mph on both sides of the freeway for miles and miles it was very uncomfortable to get to that party that late.
When arrived to the house to my surprise and joy not a soul was there, I WAS THE FIRST TO ARRIVE! In my ecstatic state i begin unloading food and serving equipment from the car to the revamped serving area, the marble island in the kitchen which was my first suggestion anyway. Soon my cousin Kai arrived and he helped me unload and set up the chafing dishes they had rented since mine were hideous (note to self: get new chafers) anyway just like clockwork soon as we finished unloading everything the servers they hired started to trickle in with a few guest. Kai and I got all the food setup and chafing dishes fired up. I proceeded to carve up the fruit, put icing on the two cakes one chocolate one red velvet but both with real rum flavoring. Then tossed the Baby Green Salad with citrus vinaigrette and we're all set to go.
So everything was all set up to go but still only 10% of the guest arrived and it was already 9:30pm. The only way for me to keep the food fresh without over cooking was to keep rotating it out between the chafers and the ovens. While I was doing this my cousin Kai was busy constructing the Tequila Sangria in the 5 gallon container I use occassionally. It came out fine and upon several taste test that we both performed we were officially buzzed and I was actually more relaxed than I was an hour before hand.
After another hour of guest funneling into the house slowly but surely we were at full party blast and I proceeded to uncover the food and set the utensils out all while still rotating my vast amount of food in and out of the beautiful Viking Professional oven that puts an exclamation point on the Italian tiled kitchen. I also set up the 45 cup coffee kettle that really nobody touched but it was nice to have out anyway.
Soon enough people started easing into the kitchen to begin eating and enjoying the food it was a sight to see the elite of 'Black Hollywood' getting excited about my food. It really gave me a great confidence boost for every party that came after that one!
Many more celebs showed up towards the end of the party to see if it was any food left which there was and to witness Jenifer Lewis cuss me out for making my Red Velvet Rum Cake too good for her to stop eating it, needless to say it was an amazing night!
