Is There Enough Food ?

This was the last big event for Mr. Sam Diamond as the restaurant would see its doors close for the final time the next week. This event the staff had been planning for Lilian was to be a surprise and up until the moment of her arrival it was, she was in tears. I never thought the woman, as hard on me as she was to learn the hospitality management, had an emotional faucet, let alone one that had a leak. She cried real tears and gave me a hug for executing an exceptional menu, decor and entertainment for the sending off of her and her unlce, Sam Diamond. Lilian was his neice and one of the finest hard workers in this business you could find. She yelled, she stomped her feet, she shook her fist, she even cursed a bit at you in yiddish if she thought you were strong enough to handle it. I was and she knew it and she made me the dedicated 'hard-butt' I am today paying attention to detail and making every part of an event, important especially the amount of good food.

While the staff and I are preparing trays and trays of fabulous appetizers, we crank the music in the kitchen. Concerned about the variety of entrees we can serve and if everyone will get at least two of everything you could dream of, we create some strange song about serving in twos. After a few laughs and pans searing with fried calamari, beef tenderloin and also peppers red, yellow and green we pull out appetizers. We got herring, sardines, salmon mousse, tempura both vegetable and shrimp with three kinds of sauces, pounds of raw shrimp and tubs of cocktail sauce, plenty of raw sliced onion, tomatoes, lettuce and tubs of cream cheese as well as baskets of ten different kinds of bagels, all sliced ready for piling high.

Paying attention to the music, after all fifteen appetizers are completed and all five entrees are in the ovens, and all accompanying starches and vegetables are sauteeing, Donna's voice comes in high and mighty: "I work hard for the money" and no doubt the whole kitchen started as we got enough food for the lady who taught us the best way is through the alimentary canal, it was a hit and we thank in part, to Donna Summer, for it !