Grand Junction, Colorado, Doin' Sushi

Every year the pressure is on for the Grand Junction, Wedding Show to do
something new, something no one thinks can be done live at a show.  This
year Chef Mike Bate (Master fish chef and outstanding all round chef and good
guy)  and myself started talking about doing sushi live at the show. 
We talked about five times and decided we would play the sushi game for all it was worth!  I
had taken a class a little over a year prior to the event, and Chef Mike, he is just
one of those guys that can read a book and put it all together.  So we
forged forward to do Sushi live at events as a catering functions.  No prep
reefers in sight, no kitchen, just the two of us on the live station, a lot of
support staff and several Cambros packed with Camcool units.  Our debut
would be a party for one of our most important clients.

This kind of stuff make Zane nuts, and he constantly climbed on us about
"this has got to go right", "we can not screw this up."  You guys have to
be on your game.  Finally relenting and allowing us to do Live Sushi for
one of our largest clients.  But it never stops worrying him when we first
go live with something.  Heck you would think he would be used to it by
now, it was only 8 years ago I asked him if we could plate a five course for the
Colorado Wine Board just to see if we could do it.

So we start to set up our station for the sushi feast.

Chef Mike's lovely wife Becky also lends a hand, she is amazing to watch,
supports Mike in all the things he is trying or wanting to learn.  And
helps all of us set up and preps in the kitchen.

Set up to prepare for the amount of people we would end up serving is pretty
intense, Mike and I had coordinated out efforts so we did not run over each
other.  I was to do maki-zushi and the nori-maki rolls (Thick and thin
rolls) and he would do the nigiri-zushi. (Rice forms topped with Raw or other
fish products.)  And the prepping continues.

One of my jobs for Zane is to find the "STUFF" to do the things we want to do
correctly.  So I had to go out and find the real sushi boats, we have two
of the large boats and one small boat.  While the trend in the USA is to
use Chopsticks for sushi, truly it is a finger food.  In fact eating it
with chopsticks can be considered an insult to the sushi chef.  Finding the
boats in Canada for less than $100 each was cool.  The little boat came in
from California.  Prior to the event I purchased a petty knife for Chef
Mike as a gift to remember our adventure always!

The boat is getting loaded:

Meanwhile I get busy putting my maki-zushi and the nori-maki rolls together
early.  I know when the doors open the rush will come very quickly when
they find out there is sushi IN THE HOUSE!

With both our prep work done we turn toward building the Sushi cave, which is
actually me handing Chef Mike whatever he asks for, as he has the artistic eye
for the set.  And once again he comes through as we build this cave.

But that does not stop him from worrying right to the bitter end, stopping by
during set up for a little pep talk about "how you guys can not screw this up. 
This is very important."  Like somehow overnight we forgot everything we
had worked on and talked about.

All in all it went well, and we would go on to do Sushi live as an event at the
Grand Junction Wedding Show.  I have more fun deciding what to do next,
learning about it, and then getting to see if we really can pull it off. 
It drives us nuts sometimes, but the adventure in catering is in the "how do we
take this restaurant feature and make it work for our clients!

I had a great time, and Chef Mike has gone on to create even more elaborate
Sushi for our company.  And I am happy to call him my friend.  If see
this guy somewhere order the fish, any way you can think of, he can cook it!

And in the end we put on a great show, booked more events with sushi in a live
station, and added sushi to our appetizer buffets.  So it was worth it to
us personally and the company as well.  And we got some cool boats to mess
with from time to time.

 

Til we talk again, look at a genre of food you like but don't know how to make
and learn it.  The trip to learning it makes the whole thing worthwhile!

Chef Bob Ballantyne

The Cowboy and The Rose Catering

Grand Junction, Colorado, USA