skinny girls & mayonnaise

I’ve begun sourcing for the massive auction dinner I will be preparing on Saturday night. While I was out shopping one day, I saw a 50 lb. bag of potatoes, and bought it.

“So I guess you’re doing a baked potato bar?” my friend Katy asked.

“Yes, with no condiments,” I replied. “Just baked potatoes. People will ask, ‘Do you have any sour cream or butter?’ And we’ll say, ‘No, just potatoes. And beer.'”

“I like it.”

Since all things retro are in when it comes to food, further brainstorming led us to the idea of a 19th-Century Irish Peasant theme (pre-potato famine). That would be fun.

When you prepare a meal for anywhere between 150 and 250 people, you have to purchase large quantities of things. They had a deal on beautiful vine-ripened tomatoes at the Sprouts market. So I loaded my cart up with 40 lbs.

“That’s a lot of tomatoes,” a lady nearby commented.

“I like tomatoes,” I said.

Several people asked me if I was making salsa. Gazpacho, I told them. Lots of gazpacho.

Right now, as I write this, there are four large Spanish-spiced pork shoulders on the grill slow smoking. (I will finish them in the wood-burning oven at the event, then shred them and put them on little bread rolls.) In the fridge are six tuna loins curing, which when thinly sliced will become an appetizer set atop little batons of those 50 lbs. of potatoes. (I was just kidding about the famine theme thing.)

Pork shoulders fresh off eight hours smoking

I’ve run out of room in the fridge, and I’ve only just begun. So I will have to think of other destinations for the 20 or 30 pizza doughs I will be making, the 10 or 15 lbs. of dry aged rib eye, the 200 squares of polenta, the various poundage of carrots and beets and cabbage.

You wouldn’t happen to have some extra fridge/freezer space you’d like to rent for a few days?

No, I’m serious… would you!??