January 1988 started what was to be a good year for catering. It was an election year and Reaganomics had the country in the lull between Iran-Contra and the end of the Cold War. People were entertaining at home nonstop. I had a lot of private parties scheduled way into the summer. January is a great month to entertain since people are looking for some excitement in the dreary cold month following the Christmas holidays.

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While I was catering, over the decades, I worked for some really wonderful people who owned businesses and needed to have catered affairs as part of their PR. One of these was the now-defunct Sunbird Fine Art Gallery in Los Altos,…

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Madeleines are small oval cakes with a pretty shell-shape rib molded on one side. These are made from a savory muffin batter baked in the traditional rectangular French madeleine plaque pan that bakes eight cakes at one time.

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Dont have time to make a pie dough? Phyllo to the rescue. Keep a package in your freezer and you are ready to fill with any number of delicious savory fillings, such as goat cheese and herbs, spinach and ricotta,…

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This simple mixture of turkey, pecans, and green onions is one of the most delicious and popular sandwich I have ever made. It takes minutes to mix in the food processor.

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Here is the recipe for Prince William and Kate Middleton’s vintage glamour wedding cake, which includes the instructions by Fiona Cairnes for making the tamarind fruit cake batter, icing, cake decorations and assembly, so now you can recreate the royal wedding cake in your own home.

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Oh is it Thanksgiving again already? A month until Christmas? It was just Fourth of July…where did the year go? So gearing up to the month devoted to eating and gatherings of all type, why not have an easy Thanksgiving feast?

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One of my favorite characters in literature and movies is Count Dracula, the vampire from the Transylvanian Alps of Eastern Europe. Obviously I am not alone since the media is thick with pop Gothic vampire regalia.

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Buffet Preparation, Storage,and Service Timeline

* Prepare two chocolate tortes, the chocolate sauce, the crêpes, almonds, biscotti, chocolate chip cookie dough, and compote 2 to 3 days ahead.

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A sure sign that Indian summer is in full bloom is the appearance of the pumpkin patch the local produce stands. Farm Fresh Produce in the South San Francisco Bay Area occupied a stretch of property on the corner of a suburban area, and busy street, that grew corn as high as an elephant’s eye and ruby red oversized tomatoes, big sunflowers with their nodding heads to line the field, and old rose bushes, for as long as I can remember. How delightfully out of place.

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