Plan Your Meetings

New Year’s Wishlist: January 2007 Morsel

Because we are starting off a new year with the hypothetical "clean slate,” I would like to share my wish list for the upcoming year:

• When you send an email, always put your contact information at the bottom below your name. At lot of us travel and use Blackberries, and unless you include your phone number, I can’t call you after getting your e-mail.
• Catering managers — Pay closer attention to what restaurants are doing and try to copy some of their creative ideas/presentations through the banquet medium.  Too many banquet menus are the same old, same old It has been a while since I have looked at banqueting menus and thought, "Wow, these are really good."
• Hotel folks — When you are reprinting your catering menus for 2007, please change out the menu selections. Too many properties take the old menus and just bump up the prices. 
• Everyone — When I am doing menu tastings with you, bring a camera. Out of 20 menu tastings in 2006, only Mike Palmeri from Swan and Dolphin bought a camera with him.  I always bring a camera, but it is even more impressive when my catering contact has one as well.

If those of you who are reading this could incorporate some, or all, of these steps into your 2007 agenda, you will start the year ahead of the curve. And I, for one, will be grateful.

— Claire Gould

Claire Gould is the owner of Rx for Catering, LLC, a culinary and logistics company that works globally negotiating and designing menus for meetings and events. Her company has done work for Coca-Cola, IBM, Honeywell and Randstad, among others. Gould teaches and writes about culinary and banquet trends and topics. If you have any feedback for her, please leave a comment below.