Choosing Caterers For Your Event (dental care)
No commentsBy jarm69
A traditional method of checking a caterer out is to ask for references. You are quite entitled to do this, and if your caterer objects, then strike him off your list. Once you have a reference, its no good just putting it to one side, contact the named referee and ask for details of work carried out for them by your prospective caterer. Its work asking at this point just what sort of events have been catered for, there is little point in appointing a catering company who specialise in small dinner parties for a couple of dozen people if you are trying to feed 2000 delegates at a major conference.
Once you have whittled your list down to a select few, the next item on your agenda should be health and hygiene. A company may be able to provide the most mouth watering menu imaginable, but if their hygiene is suspect it can still ruin both your event and your reputation, not to mention losing a valuable client.
It is a requirement of most local authorities that catering staff should all hold at the very least a basic or level 2 hygiene certificate. Again any reputable company should be more than willing to furnish you with copies of these certificates for all of their staff. The company itself should have been checked out by their local health department and records of this inspection should be available. Many councils are part of the scores on doors scheme, whereby each catering business is inspected and graded from 0 to 5 stars (some councils use a similar scheme which have unsatisfactory, satisfactory and excellent rather than stars). An initial impression may be that 4 stars (or satisfactory) is quite good. He fact is that you can score 4 stars and have upto 3 failings with your hygiene procedures, so anything less than 5 or excellent indicates a company that is less than fully hygienic.
When there is a vast choice of 5 star caterers to choose from why settle for sub standard operators?
Once you have selected a caterer you are comfortable with its time to choose a menu. This has to be a balance between what your clients would like, and what your caterer can realistically provide. Don’t forget that serving 2000 guests simultaneously isn’t as easy as providing meals for a family of 4 on a Sunday lunchtime.
Its worth involving your client with menu selection, as ultimately they are the people you are trying to please. If you are planning a conference for Asian or Caribbean delegates, they may not appreciate pie and peas all round.
You should also have something in place for those delegates who for religious or other reasons cannot eat you main choice, the most obvious are vegetarians, but you may have gluten intolerant guests or people who have trouble with lactose products. Also some food items such as seafood or peanuts can have severe consequences for people with allergies.
You would be as well taking heed of your caterers comments at this point, he/she will know what can and cannot be done in the timescale you have, and demanding totally unrealistic service will leave your caterer stressed out and you with a client unimpressed with the final result.
A little forward planning and common sense can result in a successful event that does wonders for your reputation, and leaves you with a highly delighted client.
The Author Jason Moody runs Candy Floss Crazy, a company specialising in fun catering for corporate events, weddings and parties.
http://www.candyflosscrazy.com
Creating The Brilliant Smile You Deserve
Food Hygiene: The Importance of Using Different Chopping Boards for Different Foods
By Andrea Flint
Food Hygiene - it’s a topic you probably have heard on televised cooking shows. There is a very good reason to understand the importance of using different chopping boards for different foods. There are some important differences in chopping boards as well, in the materials they are made from.
First, why use different chopping boards for different foods? This is a basic sanitation issue. Any time you cut with a blade, there can be tiny grooves left in the cutting boards. The grooves can harbor germs, and bacteria. It is very important to separate raw from cooked foods, in particular meats and poultry. You should also separate the meat from the poultry. This is accomplished by having several boards available and marked for each particular use.
By cutting raw meat on a board and later using the same board for working with cooked meat, the juices and any bacteria from the raw meat are transferred to the cooked meat, and can cause intestinal problems for the person who then eats that cooked meat. The same is true for raw vegetables. Of course, you would wash the vegetables to rid them of dirt and any contaminants, but with the groove situation and bacteria, you could also transfer the raw vegetable problems to your cooked food.
A far better solution is to purchase several chopping boards. If you have ever watched a certain popular cooking show chef, surely you would have heard him caution regarding the important of using different chopping boards. He mentions the ‘chicken police’ and ‘pork police’, and even has different colored cutting boards for each so they do not get mixed up. This is a great idea you can copy!
You can wash and disinfect chopping boards with soapy warm water, and a light diluted bleach solution. You can re-plane wood boards, and clean with coarse salt. Replace your board when needed. Do not put wood boards into dishwashers or soak them in water. A very light grade food quality mineral oil can be used on wood boards to help keep water out of the grooves.
Second, what about the materials chopping boards are made from? Common kitchen chopping boards are made from wood or plastic. Others are available, made from steel, glass, marble, or corian, but although these may be easier to clean than wood or plastic, they can damage your knife blade edges.
Food Hygiene starts with the importance of using different chopping boards for different foods. It ends with healthy meals and healthy, happy people!
Andrea writes for a kitchen accessories site where you can browse a huge range of cooking products including chopping boards.
Sunday, March 7th, 2010 at 6:20 pm and is filed under Creating The Brilliant Smile You Deserve. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
