The DNC finds Generous Servings

As you know, the Democratic National Convention is rolling into town next week. Denver is going pretty crazy: lots of road closures, all the hospitals standing by to treat terrorist attack victims, the ACLU already writing its freedom-of-speech suits so it can just fill in the names of the people involved when some protesters get arrested. We already got a visit from a pair of anarchists named Pander and Flander who were passing through Denver on their way to Burning Man and wanted to drop off some anarchist pamphlets. They bought coffee, so apparently anarchists do use legal tender, which was something I've often wondered about.

For the most part, we were planning on lying low during the convention. We made extra cookies in case we get some tourist overflow, and we were going to offer some lunchtime cooking classes to give people from the convention a break from disgusting catered food. Other than that, we were going to avoid downtown, and we weren't going to sell Obamuffins or anything. However, a few days ago the DNC found us, and made us an offer we couldn't resist.

We got a call from a realtor who said he was helping organize a big catered event for a very prominent Democrat. I don't know if I should use her name, but let's just say that she's a liberal talking head whose last name starts with "H" and rhymes with "Schnuffington". The realtor's name is Barry, and his partner's name is Tom, so we might as well just call them Tom and Jerry for short. These guys were supposed to lay the groundwork for the Schnuffington Post's DNC contingent, which includes providing catered hors d'oeuvres for 300 people all day for the four days of the convention. To this end, Ms. Schnuffington is flying a caterer out from L.A., and of course this guy needs a kitchen to cook in. The call from Barry was because the kitchen they had originally lined up for the caterer had fallen through, and they were frantically searching for another place for this guy to work. Barry said that he didn't want to drop names, but the caterer was a something of a celebrity chef. There's really nothing worse you could say to try to win Jill and me over, except possibly that he's a celebrity chef who's going to be cooking an all-vegan menu, which is the next thing Barry said. We said we didn't rent our kitchen, thanks anyway.

A few hours later, Tom and Barry showed up to beg in person. They said they could make this worth our while, and monetary figures were mentioned. They were desperate, and it began to seem like a pretty good business proposition for us. Don't worry, we weren't extortionists. I ended up talking to the celebrity chef on the phone (who I've never heard of, and to give him credit, he didn't sound snooty), who was on his way back from catering Ellen DeGeneres' birthday party. We worked out a deal, and the chef is arriving tomorrow to take a tour of the kitchen. They paid us a deposit with Ms. Schnuffington's personal credit card, which is pretty funny.

In the meantime, Tom and Barry have been in near-constant communication with us, trying to figure out what they need to buy for the chef, dropping stuff off, etc. They wanted me to recommend prep cooks to help the chef, and I said I was free (now that they're taking over my kitchen). They asked me to send them my resume, which was sort of amusing, since my current occupation is The Boss Of This Kitchen. But the chef won more points in my estimation when he wrote back in response to my "application" that I would be great! (exclamation his). I will admit that I suffered a moment of insecurity--what if he asks me to do something I don't know how to do? Then I remembered that my whole job these days is to know how to do most cooking stuff, and fake it when I don't.

I've spent the last couple of days trying to make sure that we're all ready for next week, since I'm not sure how much we'll be able to use the kitchen for Generous Servings' cooking, and who knows what this week will hold for any of us. I'm excited to be a part of something that should be pretty interesting and stimulating but that I have absolutely no responsibility for. I'm very curious to see how the chef handles the inevitable problems with this job (some of which I can already anticipate--for example, there is no plan for how to get the food from Generous Servings to the downtown hotel where it's being served). Being a caterer, especially one who flies to different states, requires a lot of thinking on your feet, and this guy must be really good at it, since he's the Caterer to the Stars. We'll see!