Working out Guilty style

Yesterday was a very successful day for Provence Catering at The Wharton School. Great Food! Great Clients! Great Caterer!  Zero Waste!!!  What could be better?  

Of course, being around such a bountiful and beautiful buffet means we need to workout more. Thankfully, Guilty has a plan.

Dazzling Dinner Parties are back in 2014. Adding an extra course or two is always a Guilty Pleasure.

Now that the holidays are in full swing, it's time to start planning an extravagant dinner party for next year that features a certified Guilty Pleasure or two on the menu? And why not?  You certainly deserve it!  Hosting this well-earned milestone celebration with your best friends is probably long overdue.

LEMON CURD PAVLOVA    With fresh berries and a caramel cage.   

With an improving economy, the timing is perfect for a more opulent approach to intimate celebrations.  Let's start your evening with the pleasure of enjoying pared wines with each course and a slower-paced meal with the people who matter the most.  When your sitting in the front row as you often do, why not dine elegantly with an extra course or two? Having a fourth or fifth course at the ready, is the only way to dazzle in 2014.  There are just too many incredible gastronomic delights to enjoy and for this fabulous feast, you should not forgo any of them.  I ask that you consider last evening's Fourth Course, Chef Ameerah and Thin Mint's incredible dessert.....

I want mine, you got yours

The event calendar has slowed to a crawl with several elegant Holiday dinners going out the door.  As the kitchen begins to exhale, the chefs don their Elf costumes, reroute the sled and shop like it's judgement day. So many gifts to purchase and so much traffic to avoid.  It's like appearing in an episode of Survivor. Making up for lost time is easier said than done, but we do it deftly.  And we do it with love. We have some very dedicated employees with joyous families.  Putting your family first is the greatest Guilty Pleasure of all.  But so is taking care of yourself.  The magic of shopping for others only works if you spoil yourself as well.

Sometimes it's procuring a rare Brazilian Rum like Leblon Cachaca.  That Amazon firewater works for me. If you have not stoked the embers with that Guilty Pleasure, you are missing a special moment. Other times it's a timeless fashion like Thin Mint's hand sewn boots from Portland Oregon.  The quality of her new leather boots is magnificent and the look is sublime. This ability to balance the beam between giving and receiving will always enrich to your good character.  Do not miss out on the opportunity to play it forward.  It's so worth it!

One domain where Guilty definitely knows his good fortune, is the catering kitchen. I may be in charge in the Executive Suite, but once I walk through the commissary doors, everything changes. Thin Mint is the Boss and she's the BOMB .  With a refined pallet and extensive knowledge base, Thin Mint is the keeper of the flame. She is remarkable on so many levels.  Just ask any of our staff or discerning clentele.  With a warm smile or cool refrain, our Executive Chef can teach, motivate, delegate and inspire.

Our staff is always learning new techniques and our clients benefit from that evolution. The need for menu development never stops and our staff knows that innovation can happen 24/7. For a Guilty Soul like me, it's always fun in the kitchen.  It's hard not to be gleeful when there's sweet and savory to explore.  Like a New Year's Day parade, an impromptu Guilty Pleasure moment is always worthy of the front row.  Here's a photo from Thursday's dessert sampling.  It's good to be Guilty.  Every Day!!!

Holiday Party season is fast approaching. Be prepared to party like it was 1999.

The fast-approaching Holiday season is the perfect time to look back as we move forward. Remember when our biggest concern was Y2K? Would our computers still work at midnight and would our everyday lives survive that dramatic leap into the Great Unknown, the 21st Century?

Yes and yes. We survived the changing of the computer clocks and turning the big 50. Mercy me, sweet 60 is now on the not-too-distant horizon. So much has changed in America and all of us now know how we fortunate we were to live in a pre-9/11 and pre-Katrina world.

We certainly knew how to throw a great Holiday Party in 1999. Stock options were the social currency, not Facebook and living well was not a lost art. Now is the perfect time for Main Street to take back our economy. Spend some money this Holiday season spoiling yourself and changing America's Partitude. The surest path to a robust economy begins when you support local businesses. The hospitality industry is a great place to start. Host a great party, hire a new employee and just watch our consumer confidence level soar.