Panic

Adventures in a catering disaster. Audio link here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_JsPCME2sNDVnNISktWMWxDTEk

Looking back, the omens were not good omens. A week before, my phone stopped sending and receiving text messages with any regularity - breaking to allow me to send and receive a flurry three days before the event - not knowing what exactly got through.

The morning of the event I’m trying to iron my clothes and the aprons I’ve borrowed from Mama - and try to use our solar electrical system - blowing out the inverter. This leads to firing up the generator, as I should have done in the first place, but by then it’s too late and the damage is done.

I arrived for food prep ten minutes before the appointed eleven - fed, shaved, and ready, but surreptitiously clipped my fingernails in the bathroom when I realized I’d forgotten. It was going to be that kind of day.   

---

We’re all set up, I have both staff folding napkins, rolling forks and knives to go in a basket at the buffet table. We’re an hour out from the time everything needs to be ready. Time to put the food in so it’ll be hot not cold at eight-o-clock.

This is a dinner party for forty, the precursor to the Bat mitzvah tomorrow. The family has invited all their rich and sophisticated friends and family from New York. We’re dressed up in white shirts and black pants, instructed to make sure everything is - perfect. I’ve been worrying all afternoon about seating. We don’t have enough chairs for the full forty, and so I’ve been clustering the lawn chairs in semicircles.

On staff  we have Wren - who I learn after she’s arrived, has never cooked, or done anything like this before - but folds napkins beautifully, and Eithne who I insisted on having at all three events as transport and backup - someone I can trust.

On the menu we have chicken, pre-grilled this morning - it just has to finish cooking in the oven. Polenta casserole already cooked that just has to be heated, a fresh salad that just needs to be put out in a bowl, and three plastic containers of onions, carrots, potatoes, and yams, to be oiled and baked. For dessert there are three beautiful fruit tarts, decorated by the daughter who’s Bat mitzvah it is, and these weird little pink frostinged things that I think are hideous but will go out nonetheless.

The first problem I run into is a lack of casserole dishes. The oven in the house is still preheating when I finally track down enough. The oven is jammed full of various sized dishes and we’re still out a thing of potatoes. It’s 7:15.  Eithne drives the remainder over to the church with me - I set the oven higher than I might normally 450 for the shortness of time - and put the chicken and polenta casserole in. Turn to the second oven for the other thing of chicken and the potatoes. I turn the knob and nothing happens. No sound of gas, no sign of a pilot off - perhaps this is the wrong knob? I have Eithne look at it and she doesn’t see anything either.

Eithne finally figures out how to fit the other thing of chicken in the oven and get it shut - the potatoes are still out. It’s 7:25

Then it occurs to me, we can cook the potatoes on the stove top! We rush back to the house and I find a pan, dump them in, and soon they’re sizzling. I glance at the oven, it’s still preheating. That’s weird . . . Check them, the oven is hardly even warm - the vegetables are all basically raw. I turn up the oven temperature in the vain hope that will help. It’s 7:30

But I try and remain calm. Maybe the vegetables come as a second course? Is that so bad? Everything is supposed to be ready by 7:45 in case they break early - but hopefully they won’t. The potatoes on the stovetop are doing great. I put Wren on stirring the potatoes, and go put on my fancy clothes to be ready for the party. I notice I’m shaking a little. Look up at myself in the mirror. Please everything go well, I pray, If it be thy will.

I head over to the church to check on the things in the oven there. I set it pretty high. Tom - the jewish father who made all this food and the one I’m reporting to - gave specific instructions not to burn the chicken. Please don’t let the chicken be burnt, I pray, Please let them stay in late.

Then I hear it. The plan was for them to come in a procession with a violin leading the way. I hear violin music. Not only have they not broken late, they broke early. It’s 7:40. It’s then that I panic. Before then it had been a vague sense of dis-ease. Now I know I’ve failed the specific instructions to have everything on the buffet table when they arrive. I call Eithne, instruct her to come pick up food, put Wren on the bar so someone will be there to greet them. When I see Tom I go up to him

“How is everything going?” He asks me.
“Everything is going terribly terribly wrong,” I say “We have two ovens not working. We’re going to have to eat in two courses.”

Then Eithne is there and I run off to the kitchen. My neighbor Baba is there, and she wants to talk but I tell her I can’t. The polenta casserole is basically warm - not as hot as I’d like it for a buffet table but it’ll do. I pull out a piece of chicken from one of the top trays and cut into it - blessedly it also is done. Wonderful - two things to go out to get people started eating.

“Is that chicken really done already?” Eithne asks
“Yeah!” At least this is going right. It was pre-grilled.

We bring the food in, the potatoes on the stovetop are ready. Tom is moving the bar up to the porch taking over one of the precious tables with not enough seating - but I’m not about to protest. The mother - Rosethorn, is in the kitchen asking where the food is.
“We just got some out on the table - ”
“Where is the salad?”
“We’ll have it in a moment.” - I can’t believe I forgot the salad.

Tom comes into the kitchen just as I’m tossing the dressing with the salad. “No! We were going to have two bowls of dressing on either side of a plain salad.” There are people everywhere. People asking us things. I just say, “Okay.” - put the salad back in its container, pull out another, and get everything out as he ordered - fast as I can. Everyone is talking. When I try and announce dinner nobody hears me over the roar of voices.

“Hey everyone!” - a few of the people closest to me turn their heads but nobody else notices.

“Excuse me!” - The same people have turned their attention, but nobody else. I have a soft voice. What do I say now? Not Excuse me again. I feel powerless, do I turn to someone with a louder voice? Then I remember.
“Shhhh!” People quiet a little.
“SHHHH!!! SHHH!”

They quiet. “Hi, my name is Pan, I’m serving you tonight. We’re having some technical difficulties so your food is going to be coming out in two courses - so leave some room, but food is ready to begin.”

Then I retreat back to the kitchen. The stuff in the oven is still basically raw - the oven still reads as preheating though it is getting pretty hot. I’m moving the yams to the stovetop when a woman comes into the kitchen.

“Hi, I’m a professional caterer - you’re having some trouble? Anything I can help with?”
“Not unless you can get my ovens heating right.”

“Well what seems to be the problem?” I explain, she’s looking at it when an irate looking woman shows up at the kitchen.
“This chicken is raw.”
I look at it - that is indeed a raw piece of chicken. My stomach sinks. “I’m so sorry - let me take that” My lips say, my hands set her plate on the table. The caterer woman is turning, seeing - “You’ve got to pull all that chicken - NOW!”

I grab tongs and a tray and make my way out,
There’s Tom “So everything seems to be going fine now right?”
“We just got a piece of raw chicken back.”
“Nevermind.”

I go to each table, looking into everyone’s eyes as I explain some of the chicken seems to be raw, picking it up from their plates. Some have started their chicken - some have found it raw, other have quite well done pieces on their plate that I let them keep. Wondering the while if I should take that too.

Back in the kitchen,  the caterer has discovered that there are two microwave ovens. Neither of us really know how to use them, but Wren does. We get as much chicken in the microwave as we can. She finds a meat thermometer. “Do you know what temperature chicken needs to be at?”
I can’t say ‘I don’t know’ - I always just look. “It’s - ahhhm”
“265” She gently reminds me. We push it in again and again, watching as the needle goes to 240 and stops.Meanwhile the salad keeps running out and I end up putting out the tossed salad anyway. I find that the yams have burnt but scrape out what I think are the good bits and put them on the table. In the oven the carrots and onions are palatable and I get those on the table. The chicken finally shows temperature. It’s 8:45.

“Maybe we should put desert out?” The Caterer - who’s name I don’t have, but am thinking of as “My angel” -is in charge at this point and I’m taking orders. Desert wasn’t suppose to be out until 9:00, but I take out the fruit tarts, and begin serving them. They’re caked on the bottom so that they turn into a crumbly mess as I try and serve.

“Pan - don’t you think you shouldn’t be serving those with your hands?” Tom. He’s angry. “Do you want me to take over?”
“Don’t you even think about it Tom -” my angel interjects “-This is your party, go relax. I’ll do it.” I retreat to the kitchen, watch as she serves perfect pieces of non-crumbly fruit tart. It’s only now that I realize that I am panicking. Diagnose myself as unsuited to do anything, and finally get something to eat in the form of pieces of half eaten chicken we can’t serve again. I don’t know if these have been through the microwave - but I don’t care. I can’t tell if the nausea in my stomach is food poisoning or shame.

---

Earlier I was working on a fictional piece with a birth scene in it, and as I tried to fake my way through it, realized I didn’t know the first thing about birth. I have never been at one. The closest I had to go on was some birth-erotica I’d read a while back. This wouldn’t do.

So I discovered the world of online birth stories. Medical aids telling about births, scientific descriptions of births, father’s stories - and so many mamas.

One quote from the ‘birthstories’ reddit page struck me. “When you are giving birth there is no giving up. You can’t quit. You can’t slap the table. You can only keep going.”

---

Wren breaks five plates on the strange half step outside the house gate as we’re taking them out to Eithne’s truck to transport back to the church. Tom finally leaves taking me aside with a gentle. “Never tell your employer ‘Everything is going terribly wrong.’ Next time say ‘We’re having some delays.’ - that really shook me.”

I apologize. I apologize for it all. What else can I do? Eithne is at the sink, sinking anger into dishes, and going through them as fast as Wren can bring them back.
I eat as much chicken as I can, but there’s too much and more than half goes into the trash. Hardly anyone ate the burnt yams and I decide not to save them for Tom and add to my shame. The remainder of the chicken, the carrots, onions, and potatoes go in containers to go home with him - all of them came out late and nobody saved room. The Polenta casserole and salad are gone in their entirety.

We sort out the dishes - what belongs to the church, the house, and Tom respectively. I had meant to bring tape and a marker to mark each dish - anticipating how hard it would be to track - but I didn’t, and end up asking a lot of questions.

The porch swing I had taken down earlier goes back two feet higher and I finally come in and ask. An old jewish man comes out to help.
“The chain needs to be longer,” he informs me.
“We just took it down. The chain is the same length.”
“Someone came and made the chain shorter.”
“I really doubt that - we just took it down a couple hours ago and it was lower then.”
“Hmm - and this is all the chain?”
“This is all the chain.”
He considers - has us move the chains around a few different ways - and then gets it, connecting them in a different point and suddenly one side sinks the needed two feet. It’s child’s work to repeat on the other side. “Thank you!”

When the yard and porch are as we found them, we make our way over to the church and unload dishes. When we get there the kitchen door is locked, the front door is locked - thankfully the side door is open. I have of course forgotten to turn the dishwasher on ahead of time - it needs half an hour to warm up. Wren figures out how they work by actually reading the instructions. We load the dishes, and I thank them and send them off.

When they’re gone I go take off my shoes, and change back into my normal clothes. Eithne calls, tells me she forgot her hoola hoops in the church parking lot. Can I take them home? Before letting her go I thank her again. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“I know.”
I go retrieve the hoops, try and find the wifi password and fail, go find a small corner between the dividing screen and the wall and curl up in a ball there. Just - breathing. Finally having the time to breathe and remember that I react slow. I should never be in positions of power that require snap decisions. I’m not built for this.

The dishwasher reaches temperature at just past midnight. I wash, put away, wash some more - leaving the last two racks to completely air dry. Then I go to lock the door and finally go home. The latch can be locked or unlocked with the little screw just as I was shown earlier - but this doesn’t lock or unlock the door. I latch it, unlatch it, rattle it, try closing it with latch in and then letting it out. Try closing the other side of the door after - nothing works. There is a keyhole on the outside though, so I start searching for a key. Tom gave  very imperative directions that I was to lock the church door before I left.

I search the offices, the closets, the cubbies, the coat pockets. I break into the main office and find that the wifi password is StPauls2014, but I do not find a key. Finally at 1:00 I take a deep breath, close all the doors and shut off all the lights - and leave the church unlocked to the mercy of God.

I make my way home with the hoops, go in, write a note to Mama that I’ll be up at eight, and collapse on my bed. It’s 1:30. There’s another call from Eithne - and a voice message. “Just wanted to check in and make sure you’re doing okay.”

By the grace of lovers and kitchen angels I fall asleep.

---

I didn’t have any worry dreams about these events leading up - it was supposed to be an easy job - but that night, I spent the whole night with everything going wrong in every way imaginable, over and over again.

---

I wake up to my alarm. Lay there. Get up when Mama knocks. “How’d it go?” She asks.
“I served them raw chicken.”
“Oh my god.”

I take a shower to wipe some of the sleeplessness away and eat leftovers for breakfast. We talk about some of the strategies for dealing with panic - checklists.
“What are you having for dinner tonight besides salmon?”
“I don’t know. I never got the menus from Tom.” And now I’m too ashamed to ask.
“That’s insane.”

She gives me a cookbook to take with so I can check relevant temperatures, and a meat thermometer. Parchment paper in case I fall back on our way of grilling salmon on foil. Tom wants it on the grill. A clipboard with blank paper, a pen and pencil,  some tape and a marker. She drives me down to the Unitarian church where the Bat Mitzvah is to take place - at 9:15. I change into my fancy clothes in the church bathroom. Get introduced to the two women who run the church kitchen, Arba the ‘kitchen witch’ and Jill her second in command, and encounter Tom for the first time in the morning - briefly. I try and look like I have it together this morning. I have a clipboard.

Staff starts show up. Garnet and Kel, Eithne and Wren. Able - who I learned last night is Wren’s ex boyfriend, and Kaily who it turns out I already know as the daughter of one of our nearest neighbors. I introduce myself, give them a schedule, ask what everyone’s food strengths are. I was going to do pronouns too, but Able passes better in person than he does on the phone and I end up not. I give them a schedule and assign jobs.

“Freely given information!” Eithne comments sarcastically. “What needs to be heated and by when?”
“Good question.” I show them all the food. Two different kinds of coleslaw, wheat salad, fruit plates, tea cakes, cogle, and an array of heated, cheese filled, sandwiches. Kailey checks the ovens right away and gets them heating, Wren pours little cups of Kibbish wine for the blessing before the meal. The women who run the kitchen take on coffee, while Kel and Garnet fold napkins. Eithne arranges fruit plates. I direct.

When I was coming up to this job, my biggest worry was that with six staff there wouldn’t be anything for me to do. I have never directed before, I’ve always been second in command - and they are very different roles. There is always someone asking you to make a judgement call, someone needing something to do, a problem to be addressed - but when the guests 116 of them - I put Able on counting - get out of the sanctuary late at 12:10, we’ve been ready for the last half hour.

There is a little confusion. Tom had told me someone was going to come get the wine and Challah for the blessing but they come pouring out without. Kailey cuts the Challah into little bits in an instant and we circulate passing out wine and bread. I with a bread basket delight one old man who points out from my nametag  “- Pan! I am being served bread by bread!”

Then chaos hits our order and there is coffee to refill, and questions on what is in the food that I can’t really answer since Tom never got us the ingredients lists - but we do our best.
“Yes there is cheese in this.”
“That Coleslaw is vegan, this one isn’t.”
“The only difference between the sandwiches  is the bread.”
“That’s Cogle”

I’d assigned a different staff to monitor each dish on the buffet table, but as I stand and answer questions I send serving platters back as they empty. The first upset happens when I go to refill the kale coleslaw and Arba yanks the platter out of my hands.
“All dirty dishes coming into the kitchen have to go through the dishwasher,” she pronounces emphatically.
“That’s a serving platter. We need to refill it now.”
“Rules are rules.”
Nothing short of tackling this woman is going to get my platter back. I growl at her in the form of “This would have been very useful information to know before!” and leave it there. Announce to my staff that we’ll be refilling platters on the buffet table from bowls that can then go through the dishwasher - so that our serving dishes never cross the magic line that is the kitchen door and need to be washed.

By 1:30 everything is wrapping up. I’ve had Wren and Able - who get along surprisingly well, I’m glad to see - bussing, and Wren reports that only one old woman is still eating and refuses to give up her plate “But only takes a bite when I come by and ask after it.”

Just before we go, my neighbor Baba comes and gives us her plate. “That’s her!” Wren hisses. I laugh. Of course it is.

---

I’ve just set Garnet and Kel to setting tables when Tom comes in.
“No! We need wine glasses on the tables.”
“I couldn’t find any, but we can ask the front desk.”
I ask, they’re in a storage closet I didn’t know we had access to.
I help bring back the water glasses and break one as I’m stacking it, grip a little too hard. A perfectly fine cup has glass wedged into it and I struggle to unlock them.

Kel sees and bustles over and silently  tells me we can just throw both away. It’s in a moment when Tom has his back turned, and it’s so quiet Wren tells me afterward “I have never seen anyone break glass so calmly.”

When the night is over we’re out one wine glass, two water glasses, and a plate, plus the five from the night before. I’ve been tracking these, but when it’s all done I decide not to mention them after all.

---

Tom had been very worried about the salmon.
“Can you grill salmon?” he asked.
“Sure,” I told him. I don’t see why not.

“You have grilled salmon before, right?”
“A little,” I lied smoothly. I’ll grill some salmon before the event to make that a reality. I quiz mama on salmon grilling after.
“What’s your advice on grilling salmon?”
“Don’t grill it.”
She recommends I do it in foil, to make the grilled salmon as little like grilled salmon as possible, but when I suggest this to Tom he’s outraged.

I never did end up practicing as I intended.

As we’re waiting for the guests to come out, I take the time to find someone else to grill the salmon. Hell if I’m going to fake anything now. Kailey has never done it professionally but has grilled a lot of fish at home, which is a whole lot better than I can say for myself. I set her on that task.

When we arrive at the third venue, Tom pulls her aside and asks her to grill the salmon. She’s confused, “Yeah, of course!” - not knowing that Tom is taking charge without checking in. He doesn’t trust me anymore.

There are a lot of small micromanaging things he does that I don’t really know how to respond to. He has Angela - my kitchen angel from the night before, in the kitchen - and it’s her I check in with,

“Do you want to be in charge here? I’m feeling stable and sane at the moment. This morning went great, but I’m totally willing to hand over reins if you want them.”

She’s delighted the morning went well. Doesn’t want to be in charge, but says Tom wants her in the kitchen so I might as well put her to work. She puts the sauces in Chafing trays, sends someone to go get more red sauce, shows me how the ovens work - this high tech oven will only stay on if a timer is going - and retires, on call if needed.

When guests arrive for the cocktail 45 minutes - I have Kel as barkeeper - I’m starting to worry about things not being hot again. Tonight’s dinner is simple. Pasta, Red sauce from a can, white sauce that’s basically milk with parmesan sprinkled in. Salad that I have ready and prepared this time, and salmon that Kailey starts grilling just now. There’s nothing to cook, nothing to go terribly wrong besides the salmon, but I don’t want to serve lukewarm sauce. I mention it to Angela who points out there is a second oven that gets hotter.

When guests come in for food it’s hot, and again we have staff monitoring everything, each knowing their job. Eithne is serving salmon, Able is carrying salmon from the grill to the serving table. Ruby is monitoring plates, Wren is on salads, Kel has sauces.

Once people are served we transition. I have two extra staff joining me, Beth and Yakki, both teenagers who I’ve set on bussing and have to watch for their tendency to sneak out to the bar. Wren and Able bus to. Eithne and Kaily work the dishes, and Kel and Garnet clean and put away. This is something I am very familiar with. The rhythm of a kitchen, tracking what needs to be done and putting people on it. I eat pasta from a child’s plate brought back full and nibble on salmon skin as I survey. Occasionally I’ll go out and collect dishes just to see where the room is at.

We transition to desert right on time, and I set Kel to serving, which she does beautifully - even if it takes me three times telling her she can cut into the cake before it gets through.
“No fanfare? Just cut in?”
“Yeah - I’m surprised too, but Tom just wants it served.”

Then they move to dancing. A caller pulls them through elaborate jewish folkdances and I watch it as I help finish bringing in dishes - it’s beautiful.

The lights go off, glowsticks come out, and the dance turns modern. I start stacking chairs. Tom had told me we were going to start clearing out more space for people to dance once it started, but there are still a lot of people sitting, and purses and coats left behind. Tom comes to me after I’ve passed gathering chairs to our teenagers.
“We don’t have to clear the floor!” He informs me. “Didn’t you get the checklist? That’s the club’s job!”
“Oh, sorry.” I leave the chairs where they are.

Eithne has been at the dishes since she stopped serving, and I tell her to take a break.
“Go dance!”
She comes back 30 seconds later, “Tom says that I can’t.” Never mind. She doesn’t end up breaking until 11:30 when we pack up. It turns out that the person the club has clearing the floor is the little old woman at the front desk, and since we’re responsible for sweeping, and that can only happen after everything is cleared, I end up helping her after all.

I  give the checklist to Wren who methodically reads through it and finds a dozen things I missed, and then once we’ve worked through it, dismiss the entire crew. Kel comes to me as she’s leaving, “Hey, if you’re ever doing another catering job I would love to be on your crew again. You were such a good leader.”
“You didn’t see me yesterday.”
“I don’t need to, I just know that I’ve seldom been part of catering crews that ran so smoothly and got along so well. You let me know.”

Tom is long gone when I take the desk lady on the walkthrough. I discover we forgot to give back the remainder of the salmon, and the leftover milk, and pack it in Eithne’s truck, to be split between us when we get home. Otherwise it goes well, she checks off that we’ve done all we’re supposed to, and lets us go.

---

A week later, Tom calls a follow up meeting. I bike to their farm, park outside the front gate, and walk down to the creamery where I was told to meet him. Rosethorn comes out as I’m passing the house.

“Pan - bike down to the second gate as you were instructed.”
I go back, bike down, Tom is cleaning out the goat pens, and stops when he sees me. I give him the payment information, everyone’s hours. Rosethorn comes down and joins him.

“Do you have anything else to say?” He asks.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for messing up the dinner, but I’m also sorry that you couldn’t relax or trust me because of that and the whole event got that much more stressful. . . “

He just looks at me. I go on.

“I want to offer - I’d like you to pay me at least 150 less than the 500 promised.”
“We’re still deciding what to do on the matter of your payment,” he says coldly. “On our side we feel betrayed, and lied to. We feel like you represented yourself as a goodly bit more competent than you actually are.”
“I found myself a goodly bit less competent than I thought I was. I’ve never had something not work like that - the ovens . . . “
Rosethorn interjects “We went back and tested the ovens afterward and everything worked!”

Yes, because I made that up and actually served raw chicken to spite you. I think, but decide not to say.

She continues, “You know as we were leading up to this we had a lot of doubts about you, but really I was your biggest advocate. We wanted to trust you, but there was nothing in your performance to warrant the trust we gave.”

“The second day went off without a hitch.” I try to say.

“You say that - but in the morning I had to go into the kitchen and grab toothpicks for the fruit. People were having to pick up fruit with their hands . . . “

Tom interjects, “We didn’t hire you to cause problems, your job was to solve them. A mechanical failure isn’t an excuse.”
“I know, I’m sorry - the thing to do would have been to hold dinner a little later.”

“We feel lied to and we feel like you just aren’t cut out for catering. We want to make sure that no other families are lied to or suffer the same consequences of your deceit that we do. Now go. We’re busy people.”

I go. I feel oddly light as I bike away - as if their anger has burnt away a little of my own at myself. It feels good to have people openly angry with me. It feels good to have them be petty and vindictive and small, caring about the toothpicks. There is nothing they could say that I hadn’t already felt at myself, and since they’re holding it, now I don’t have to.

I scheduled an hour for the meeting and it took about ten minutes, so I spend the extra fifty by the creek. My shoes come off and the sun warms me. What have I learned?

I wonder whether they are right. Would you prefer someone who has always had everything go right? Or someone who knows by experience everything that can go wrong? I found also in myself the capacity to lead in a way I haven’t before. Kel really liked working with me, and she’s catered before under more experienced men.

I don’t know then, if I am cut out for this kind of work. I don’t think fast, but I am good at delegating. Maybe I am only capable with a full crew at my side.

It’s that old paradox, I realize, inherent in every job application. “We need two to five years of experience” - how do you get experience if you need experience? The answer, as every young person knows, is to lie.

But what happens when that lie becomes important, when someone with that experience would know they panic - and I don’t. I learned something incredibly important about myself. My capacity to shut down. My capacity to keep going even when shut down. Both dangerous.

Stepping forward I do not know what I have learned, what conclusions I am to take. I only know I must stay vigilant for this new found capacity to panic.