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Oh. My. God. Have just been so busy. Not that I’m complaining, it’s always good to be busy, but it’s playing absolute havoc with my skin. No time to cleanse, tone and moisturise when you’re working 16 hour days – all I’m good for by the time I’m finished is collapsing into bed to dream weird dreams about mushroom risotto (keep having the same dream, which does worry me slightly – wonder what Freud would make of it – if anyone has any idea, please do let me know!). And as for my hands – well, let’s just say that certain washing up liquids lie. ‘Hands that do dishes...’, yeah right.
Plus, as many good intentions do, my plan to keep a regular diary of life has fallen to the wayside. But not anymore, today marks my first entry, the first of many! Well, in theory anyway. I thought I would keep a note of what’s happening in my life, my views, my plans, just in case one day I accidentally become a celebrity chef and have to write an autobiography, and then I can turn to these already written musings on life and bam! Big advance cheque on work that’s pretty much already done, bar a bit of polishing and the adding on of ‘the early years’. Piece of cake.
So, better get started. Why have I been so busy that I barely have time to sleep? Well, the simple answer would be that people recognise quality, hence my popularity as a caterer! Seriously, I think the fact that our food really does taste yummy means that people come back to us, and tell others about us. Plus my swanky new website can’t be hurting!
One of the most exciting things the company has been involved in recently has been the launch of a new P&O service. It involved us feeding canapés to 500 people on the dockside, in the QE2 hangar. Don’t think I’ve ever been so cold in my life, but what a buzz! We made some of our favourite gorgeous cold canapés, including some really cute mini prawn cocktails in shot glasses with tiny little spoons. But the most popular were our hot canapés (not really too surprising as it was freezing). Our noodles in banana leaf cones were being wolfed down so fast I’m sure some people weren’t even bothering to use their chopsticks to eat them, just tipping them straight out of the cone and into their mouths, and our tiny newspaper cones of fish and chips and little bite sized cheeseburgers were equally as popular. One of my favourite things was the little bowls of sausages with mustard mash, drizzled with really scrummy (if I do say so myself) onion gravy. They looked so sweet and all the guests were absolutely raving about them. The fact the sweet little bowls doubled as handy hand warmers couldn’t have hurt either! (Think my new bowl food menu is really going to take off, especially for summer parties.) The whole event went really well, and as I headed back home in my trusty old van (more on it later!) I had that funny feeling of exhilaration and exhaustion that I’ve never experienced in any other profession.
Arghh! The time! Must go, but I shall continue…
Until then, farewell.
Penni Black x
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