I remember fondly my college days.  Back then I could stay up until all hours of the night, catch a couple of hours of sleep, make it to class and then do it all over again the next night.  Those were the days.  Back before my body started to betray me and demand more and more time to recoup between physical exertion. 

I never really feel like I’m getting old until I go through a week like last week.  In my mind I am an eternal 32 years old.  But my body disagrees.  Last week we were extremely busy both with catering and in the market.  The Husband and I were arriving at work around 5:00 am and staying until 6 or 7 pm every night trying to keep up with the orders.  And to finish off the week we catered a party for 283 people Friday night. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I love the fact that we are busy.  In fact, when we’re not busy I tend to sit around and pout about not being busy.  But the hectic pace of the week and the lack of sleep really caught up with me this weekend.  Can you really call it a nap when you get up, eat breakfast, and then go back to bed for 4 1/2 hours?  What if you then get up, fix lunch for the family, eat and then feel the need for yet another “nap”?  Apparently, gone are the days when my body could snap back with a quick “power nap”.  Now it seems that I must make up every lost hour of sleep in order to be a fully functioning human being.  My mind may feel like a 32 year old’s but my body is definitely betraying my true age.

Sometimes we cater events that remind me why I became a caterer.  We did one of those events last Saturday.  It was a fund raiser for the Saline County Boys and Girls Club (a very worthwhile organization by the way) with about 230 guests.  We served them a menu that you don’t normally see at large banquets like this with a shrimp cocktail starter, a pasta course of blackened chicken with cajun cream sauce, a meat course with raspberry chipotle glazed pork loin, and a dessert of New York style cheesecake and a chocolate covered strawberry.  Our meal was served by volunteers from the Mayor’s Youth Council and the Benton High School Drill Team and I have to say that these young people did an outstanding job.

But the part I like best is getting the reactions from the guests after the meal is over.  Unlike a lot of our catering which is corporate drop-off, we actually got to hang around after the meal and interact with the guests and get their reactions to our food.  And the reactions were overwhelming!  I know it’s a little self-serving to enjoy this so much but there is something very satisfying about serving a meal that you are proud of to a group of people who really appreciate it.  It’s one of the things I love most about what I do for a living and why I gave up the practice of law to do this (you just don’t get the same kind of reaction from your customers after a court hearing — go figure).

Anyway, I want to say thank you to the Boys and Girls Club for letting us help them with this event and to urge anyone who’s looking for a worthwhile cause to donate to this upcoming Holiday Season, please keep this organization in mind.  They do an incredible job working with the young people in our community.