Category Archives: Great Parties

PIE! Make it and Take it 2012

I’m officially declaring this year’s “Make it and Take it” the best ever.

We were super organized, and even managed to cater three jobs before the party! Yay team!
There was the usual amount of chaos, but the reservations made it a well oiled flash pie mob. I loved that you all brought friends, made over 100 pies, all while enjoying 4 varieties of delicious brew. And lunch. And cookies. (Next year bring your growlers for the leftover beer.)

The old time stringing from my friends and neighbors of Triple Chicken Foot made everyone very happy.
My mom came and made pies with my nieces.

As usual, sissy manned the ovens, this year with Chef Fred in super hero fashion.
I love that so many of you come into the kitchen making a pie for the first time.

I love that you leave as a baker piemaker!

We went through 2 cases of Ha’s Organic Apples and over 130 crusts.
I love this picture of my friend Amber. She’s an amazing Event Coordinator about town.

Yes, we will do it again next year. The Sunday before Thanksgiving. Welcome to the club.

Here’s a note I got from Sweet Janet after the party:

“My family and mom’s nurse had such a great time yesterday! Before the class, my mom [who has a touch of Alzheimers asked if going to Marie Callenders wouldn’t be easier.} But after we were seated outside, and it was such a beautiful day { that was lucky also} she was really enjoying herself. My family and the nurse, who never have baked a pie before, had so much fun doing this..they keep saying.. next time I’m going to try the pumpkin or the chocolate pecan. And they also loved the food a lot! They never had vegetarian lasagna before, and my niece said she usually doesn’t like veggies, loved the roasted veggies and the lasagna as well. My aunt said the soup was delicious. .my mom loved everything and while we were inside baking the pies, asked if she could go back outside and keep eating. Yikes, how can a 100 pound Asian lady stuff herself so much? ..Our pies were beautiful, and we were showing them off to everyone after the class.. My 14 year old niece was so proud of her pie, and my brother and his wife were pretty impressed that it looked so beautiful. We all went to Chinatown last night to have a family style dinner, and afterwards we cut the pies at the restaurant and served them with Vanilla Ice cream..so yummy..my mom was telling everyone what a fun day she had.. and she’s usually kind of grouchy. I told her.. see! Better than Marie Callenders!.. thanks, again! Janet”

Oh and one more shout out to my Johnny, who Maitre’deed the hell out of the day. Love you baby.

A Beautiful Friday Bride at Smog Shoppe Part One

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This lovely bride took DIY to a new level. I have to break it up in two posts because there’s so much to share! She had everything taken care of with lots of re-use and dare I say, upcycling.

The centerpieces were clusters of old glass vases and vessels with roses, costas and baby’s breath. She made little buttons too. These fans were the programs for the evening.

I love this little flag bearer with the “here comes the bride” banner.

She had framed signage everywhere and she made her beautiful bouquet.

Margaux and Chad! (Sissy says I always need a picture of the bride)

So Beautiful! She made that! But did she throw it?

I’ll end this first post on the candy bar. Notice the signage and packaging and the shelves. It looked amazing against her mom’s collection of lace and ticking.

Don’t those Whoppers look good?

Stay tuned for part two.

Location of the Year 2011

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Instead of giving the honor to myself (we all agree at Jennie Cooks, the best events are at the Shoppe), I award the title to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. For starters, they have great parking and they let you drive on the lawn for load in. That doesn’t happen at most Museums of distinction.

Then there’s the inside.

This is the whale room where we’ve seen men dance half naked at the Most Amazing Wedding Ever.

Below is the Rotunda. On this particular occasion, we served the bride’s delicious and amazing homemade vegan cakes.

Although off topic, I must also mention these adorable party favors. Alix made them. They were waiting for the guests with their table numbers. I’m not kidding when I say Alix was the cleverest bride in all the land.

Cocktails with the dinosaurs. Can you beat that?

At the AIGA RE-EXTRAVAGANZA there were amazing sustainable art installations in the North American Mammal Hall. We loved these Solar Sculptures and are hoping a client might like them too… Garden party anyone?

And look at this! Put a cork in it! Have a seat! All of these installations are from award winning local designers.

So, should you ( or your company) be looking for a fun event space… go to the Museum!

White Always Works

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Are you struggling with your color palette? I have this advice – white always works. I had a neighbor back in the 80′s who whenever challenged with a color making decision, always chose white. White cars, white clothing, white shoes. She felt it was easier than making the decision all the time and that way she always matched. At the time I felt she was clever, but boring. Well, almost thirty years later, the penny dropped. This MOB had the same idea.

Make it white, then everything matches.

She borrowed silverware and purchased some affordable glassware at IKEA

For some reason, all the boys came with me on this one.

And remember, water always works too.

Fowler Museum Opening Celebration

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The team at Jennie Cooks Catering headed to the UCLA Fowler Museum

to work the opening celebration for the exhibit “Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley”. What a lovely venue in which to feed hungry culture seekers on a warm Los Angeles winter’s night. The introduction ceremony was held downstairs in a large open air atrium. There were tray passed appetizers featuring our spinach fritters with bistro dippy, as well as assorted pretzels, roasted nuts and imported cheeses to complement the open bar.

Once the ceremony was finished for the 300 VIP guests, another swell of an additional 400 guests headed upstairs to the rooftop reception in the tented open air patio. Guests were greeted with huge cheese and fruit trays highlighted by exotic manchego, brie and parmesan grana padano cheeses. Amongst the cheese trays, petite red cooked turkey meatballs were served.

A dozen servers enchanted the guests with tray passed hors D’oeuvrerie of bacon wrapped dates, endive with chevre mirepoix and more delicious spinach fritters with bistro dippy. All the food was well received and fully consumed. As the night wound down, the guests enjoyed the sounds of an authentic African live band. It’s always a great pleasure to work at a L.A. cultural landmark.

Waxing Frenetic

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Perhaps a party for 1200 folks might make the average caterer a little, well, edgy?

: Later on, I’m singing back up

Not true for the rock star catering team at Jennie Cooks. We Showed up, set up took a few snaps and entertained the masses with lots and lots of deliciousness on all three floors of Madame Tussauds Hollywood Wax Museum.

: Me and Kobe – and I don’t mean the massaged meat.

The Swing Kings styled it up big time and kept the crowd moving to the grooves.

Another great event!

I got this lovely thank you note from the amazing event planner at KCET, Valerie Wang.

“Thanks SO MUCH for everything!!! I know there were a LOT of last minute changes and adjustments, and you guys were so professional and efficient about everything. Jennie, thanks for your flexibility on site, for being so easy and great to work with, and for making the event such a success. SPECIAL thanks for helping with the trash last minute. As you know, there must have been crazy miscommunication as neither one of us knew we had to handle event trash services. I could not have asked for a better caterer to work with and honestly am so glad you AND your entire team was there to make this event work!

I look forward to our next gig (hopefully this didn’t scare you away), and to our event on February 3rd, and can’t wait to work together again!”

You can’t scare me Valerie – let’s do it again!

Great Party, Wrong Recipe

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Chef’s nightmare: Have a pie making party and give the guests the wrong recipe. Add a tablespoon of salt to each pie and a 1/2 cup of vanilla. YIKES! a dream come true! despite three of us proof reading the recipe, not one of us caught the big batch measurements on the single pecan pie recipe. I think I caught it soon enough, but I heard yesterday that some of you still got an unsuspecting savory pie – I owe you one. ( Debbie – I’m talking to you)

Pretty Cranberry Apple Pie

The Sustainable Swag Table was a great addition and the guests loved choosing a prize as much as I enjoyed shopping for them throughout the year.

Sustainable Swag Carafe and Pumpkin Pie

Triple Chicken Foot played the perfect tunes for the day and the Eastside Brewers out did themselves with a dark beer that I’m still dreaming about.

The Foot Rules!

All in all, Another Successful Event!

Busy Bakers

Notes for next year: invitation only and if you came this year, you’ll get an early VIP invite to secure your spot and choose your time!

Roots of Change can Party!

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What a great night - chefs everywhere! Great wine, exceptional food and desserts! It was the kick- off party Aptly titled “Good Food for All -Celebrating the Los Angeles Food Shed” which started the Network Summit this week: Healthy Food and Farms by 2030.

Chefs! The room was radiant with the energy of these sumptous local foods, appreciated by a room full of dedicated eaters and advocates for a cleaner food system. We were giddy with delight. Even the Mayor gets it. Hopes were high and the rumble of forthcoming change was palpable. It’s happening people, it’s happening!

The Good Food for All Agenda - creating a regional food system for all of Los Angeles is available on line at Roots of Change. The party was magnificent with every noble and worthy local chef in attendance, or presenting. ( I got to hug my hero Suzanne Goin)

This brown sugar peach tart was amazing.

The setting was stupendous. Vibiana is rumored to be a restaurant soon, created by the mastermind behind Grace, Neil Fraser. I think we should combine our strength and I should run the event department. I’d like that!

All my garden peeps were there. My personal favorites of course; Warren from Root Down LA and Julia from Garden School Foundation. Also in attendance, Lisa Lucas Los Angeles Slow Food Warrior and Amelia Saltsman , author of The Santa Monica Farmers Market Cookbook .

There’s just one thing… Could we please have a dialogue about all those disposable plates?

WE’RE ON TV!!!

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airs on WEtv

Recently we the lucky at Jennie Cooks Catering got to participate in a super fun television event-twice! A brilliant concept of creating the brides dream wedding with less tacky and WAY more classy, David Tutera picks couples who are already planning what could be a potential tragedy of a theme wedding and creates magic. On two particular episodes he and his team were smart enough to call the Jennie Cooks Catering team and we were smart enough to accept the challenge.

The first episode we worked on is called “Pirate Wedding” and believe me it’s as wonderful as it sounds! Truth be told when the crew heard about the theme we were worried. Would there be eye-patches? Peg legs? Parrots???? But instead when we arrived we were greeted with beautiful opulence. Tables covered in jewels and champagne aerialists moving in gorgeous flow as they filled the guests glasses. (and yes our bartenders just underneath these lovely ladies had a blast!) Speaking of bartenders, the already tightly run ship (pun intended) was hijacked by the wedding party themselves and it was very scandalous indeed! I guess they really thought they were pirates. Tune into the pirate wedding episode to see if they air the true story!

Check out all the episodes and air dates here…

The next party we did was a greek themed wedding with a simple easy menu of hummus, greek salad and a kalamata, sun-dried tomato penne paired with a delicious homemade (of course) white wine sangria. The wedding was a beautiful vision of white and truly the bride and groom were so very happy and in love. Don’t ask me about the wedding cake fiasco because it was WAY too embarrassing to get into. But do tune in to see if the humiliating experience made it onto air

Once again the Tutera team outdid themselves with verve and flair in every aspect of presentation. The guests were so happy we had to kick them out.

Perhaps my favorite part of this wedding were the live action greek tableaus. About six people all painted in white standing on pedestals moving slowly and gracefully though out the wedding. Also the DJ was KILLER!!

Photo by Pee Wee Lee De Vary on her cellular camera