Indianapolis. Home of the Indy 500 and well I’m not quite sure what else. This week flew by! Mecum auto auction was something unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. Cars that make me want to be a collector of all things of the 1940-1960s. Prestigious cars in beautiful condition selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars! Where do all these bidders come from?
I landed Monday afternoon and met up with 2 other guest chefs from NYC. Of course I’m always a little anxious about working with other chefs, we all have terrible tempers and egos at some point. First assignment was to run the VIP meet and greet with passed hordourves. We meshed well went over prep lists and managed to work well together! Success ✔️
The rest of the week would be the same. Breakfast for 50 and Lunch for 160 (realistically they ate for 500). That’s it…. Nope. Every day there is a “guest request” for something obscure. Salads for the lunch buffet… Ok got it. Togo salads for the ladies running the auction office with items that aren’t in the building… Ok got it, run to Restaurant Depot. VIP plated lunch 2 hours earlier than planned.. Ok got it. Box lunches every day with additional items not listed on the contract?! NO…..PROBLEM! Thankfully the team that was picked for this event understood the task and we communicated to get it done.
The FOH person assigned to my team was lovingly called “BABY”. He is 20 years old and has never worked more than 25 hours per week. He was in for the ride of his life. After the first breakfast was served his head was spinning! I could see the look of terror in his eyes. He headed to lunch to set up for chicken Parmesan and pasta salad day. We prepared close to 30 pans of chicken. He called back on the radio at 1225 saying he was putting up his last pan of chicken. This instantly created panic among us…. There’s no more ready to use chicken in the building, no breadcrumbs ready, no egg wash ready and we are only 25 minutes into lunch!
Let me double check!!!
I ran down to the lobby lunch area and saw “baby” sweating and panicking telling me that we didn’t have enough food. I opened the bottom half of the hot box and revealed 28 more pans of chicken. At this point I lost all trust I had in him. He was with me for the rest of the week and we were going to get him up to speed on this catering thing.
Concessions for events like the Mecum auction are crazy! It’s a whole-nother beast! They make everything there from the General Tsos chicken to the beer cheese for pretzels. Amazing. It’s organized chaos…. As most kitchens are.
I did have a few minutes to watch the auction. Look at the cars, and see how other departments/divisions work.
The highest selling car was a Shelby. It went for $1,100,000.00 HOW?! Who?! I watched the auction for this car and the man who bought it stood up in his seat and yelled the price he wanted to pay. The crowd fell silent and the auctioneer asked for higher bidders, no one came forward.
I am off tomorrow so I’m planning on exploring the city! I’ve signed up for a scavenger hunt and maybe even a ride on a gondola!
Next stop Dean and DeLuca Invitational Golf Tournament in Dallas!
Until next week!
Chef Kats Life 