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Page 9
Finding out that she still had over an hour to kill before the guests' arrival,
Roxi walked across the street to the Conference Center. Familiar with working
here conventions and meetings, she had no problem to get situated. First she
checked on the setup. Fifteen tables of ten were set for a six-course dinner
with all the accompanying wine glasses. All looked okay to her.
Still here and there a wineglass needed polishing, silverware straightened out,
salt & pepper sets waited to be refilled. Roxi was getting deeply involved in
the planning, and outcome of this party, especially her two tables, it let her
forget all that she had been just through hours earlier. After hearing Hans
talking about some people may lose their jobs, if this banquet was less than
perfect catered, she knew it had to be a big deal, special event. Hans was
always very positive, and upbeat. She was not going to let him down. All Roxi
was concentrating on was to pull off a successful dinner party, nothing less
than first-class, living up to her own expectations, being willing, able and
ready to do her job, as expected, like clockwork and setting a good example for
all co-workers. Roxi completed the individual work-station setup, all the little
stuff guests don’t see but need. She went and got ice from the ice makers in the
back area. Then upped the number of white wine and champagne bottles to be
chilled. “Nothing worse than warm champagne!” Roxi said to herself. Next, she
opened bottles of red wine, to let the wine breathe. Coffee had to be made too,
extra plates, saucers, and cups needed to be stocked, sugar bowls and creamers
be ready.
Lucky enough, Bernd a Swiss-trained waiter was there too. Having worked banquets
for the past 30 years, he knew what was needed. Roxi was happy to see Bernd as
one of the banquet servers. Bernd gladly took two tables. Obviously, he hadn’t
expected anything less. As the other five waitresses and four waiters arrived,
they divided the remaining tables between each other and worked together to
finish the station set up.
Roxi listened as one of the banquet chefs explained to the food-runners, a team
of 6 young waiters, what and when to pick up in the kitchen. He also made sure
everyone knew what's on the menu, most important for all, was to know, "... it's
simple, straightforward plate service tonight, we plate it, you serve it!"
Hans arrived '15 minutes to showtime.' He was delighted to know all was under
control. Then he stepped outside the room and talked with the two bartenders,
who had set up their bars on opposite sides of the gathering, greeting and
meeting area out front the banquet room. Worried about not being able to take
care of 150 people from two bars, Hans looked for Bernd and Roxi, and yes they
offered to assist the bartenders and help to serve pre-dinner-drinks as needed.
Soon after, a few couples arrived, and within 15 minutes the space in front of
the banquet room was filled with people from many countries. French, Spanish,
Portuguese, Italian, German, Japanese, Korean and Chinese was spoken aside from
the more common English, and those with South African, Australian and British
accents. A melting pot of cultures. Where chit-chatting was not possible, a
smile, a friendly gesture was all that was needed to communicate, as they sipped
on their pre-dinner-drinks. Forty-five minutes after the first guests arrived,
Hans acting as a ceremonial master opened the large doors to the dining area. By
this time most people knew what table and seat were theirs, and if not, they
were able to read the large lettered place-card with their names or find their
table and place on one of several large seating charts on display easels. Roxi
had counted seven in the reception area, and two more in the banquet room. It
took the better part of 15 minutes until everyone was seated.
Roxi had four bottles of champagne open, yet soon was popping more corks, her
guests obviously liked the fancy, dry French bubbly.
There was a lengthy welcome speech, in four or five languages, by a member of
the local multilingistic translators agency. Roxi kept busy refilling the
champagne glasses with more of the pricey, vintage Maison Veuve Clicquot. Then
the host, a renowned highly notable gentleman at home in Seattle, Washington,
spoke. He promised world-class Jazz and Blues as entertainment for the occasion.
Everybody cheered, and the curtains behind the speaker opened up to a stage with
two groups of locally well-known musicians.
To the sounds of smooth Jazz music the food-runners delivered tray-loads of
imported French luxury food, Pate Foie Gras to the service stands near each
table. On Bernd’s hand signal, they all started the serve the plates of
goose-liver-pate Strassburg style. Roxi holding as many as four orders in both
hands, three in the left, one in the right, did five trips delivering the
delicious appetizer. She placed the plates, as she had learned, expertly from
the right in front of each guest. One couple rejected the appetizers with a: "No
goose-liver for us." The woman explained it by saying: "My husband and I are
allergic to eating anything goose!" He added: "We raise pet geese on our ranch
in Utah. We use goose eggs for breeding, we don't eat anything goose." Roxi
asked if she could bring them anything else instead, they thanked her, but were
looking forward to the next course. Roxi sent those not needed appetizer back to
the kitchen. What she didn’t know, the cooks were happy to get those two plates
back, one of the other waiters had an accident and dropped several plates.
Done with serving the cold appetizers, Roxi grabbed two bottles of the Louis
Jadot Pouilly Fuisse and started pouring the dry white Burgundy. She left the
champagne glasses on the table because she knew, her group of connoisseurs was
not done with the vintage of this particular dry French bubbly. As her guests
finished their cold appetizer, Roxi cleared the plates, from the left. The
food-runners were removing the trays and plates and soon returned with small
servings of Tomato Bisque. Roxi kept busy placing tomato soup in front of each
guest, trying to serve at the same speed, not slower or faster than any one of
the other wait-people nearby. It was Bernd who gave the sign to serve the
course, so all were in sync and able to work as a team. Roxi knew quite well
“That after all, to serve a large group of people is no race, but a team effort.
The goal here being to serve a hundred and fifty VIPs in a timely manner, namely
as close to possible, at the same time, at every one of the fifteen tables. Roxi
offered each guest a choice either the dry white wine, Pouilly Fuissé, or more
of the sparkling wine from the champagne, Veuve Clicquot. By the time Roxi was
clearing the soup cups and saucers, another speech was being given by a company
engineer. Roxi didn’t understand most of it, he spoke in broken English, but it
was because of the technical terms which made no sense to her. He explained in
detail specifics about Internet Protocols and changing the version so that every
leaf on earth and every star in the firmament could have it’s very own IP
address.
The band played Blue Trane, as the warm appetizer course was being served. It
consisted of Monterey Spot Prawns, three to a plate, with a small scoop of beans
and rice in the center. One of the waitresses of oriental heritage had been able
to find wooden chopsticks. Roxi had no idea where she got them from. Many more,
not only the Japanese, Chinese, and Korean customers requested chopsticks as
well. Lucky enough one of the chefs, being friends with the owners of the
Japanese restaurant across the street was able to take care of the latest
request. Soon a set of chopsticks was added to every place setting.
https://www.amazon.com/author/helmut
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