Chefs personalize food for special events
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lot has changed in the world of food and weddings over the last few decades. Gone are the days when a couple headed to a hotel basement for champagne and cake. Today’s couple is looking for more — a lot more. The bride and groom of today seek the same food that they crave on a Saturday night out on the town. Self-professed “foodie” brides and grooms are looking for creative, delectable meals that speak to them. Many want a meal to be a major part of their memory making. With the transformation of the importance of the dinner table thanks to food television, media and farmers markets, a foodie bride and groom know good food and how to prepare it. They expect great food on their big day. Gone are the days of brick-like chicken and questionable cream sauce. Today’s foodie couple is looking for well-executed food with personality and integrity. They are interested in having their meal prepared with the best ingredients, local produce, humanely raised meats, sustainably produced wines and by accomplished chefs. Foodie brides and grooms want to get creative and playful with their menu. They want excitement on the plate. It is the unexpected details that have guests talking and remembering what a wonderful meal they had at a wedding. A great event is made by the personalized details. Infusing a meal with favorites of the honored guests makes the rest of the room feel as if they are in the home of the newly wedded couple. If the couple is vegetarian, well then they shall feast on a fantastic meal sans meat. If the bride is from Georgia and the groom is from the other Georgia, then the menu can represent both the South and Eastern Europe. It is their, day after all. Just because a meal is cooked en masse should not mean it should suffer in quality, originality and taste. Of course creating a custom, gourmet meal for a special event or wedding
Wedding • July 2013
can present its own special set of challenges. Serving a perfectly cooked piece of meat for 150 guests isn’t for the faint of heart, but chefs love a challenge. They would rather execute a perfect plated service than slog through the doldrums of a standard chafing dish-style buffet. This is why they welcome the challenge of creating an outstanding meal for a special event or wedding. To them, the test of elevating their culinary experience is far better than continuing the trend of buffet monotony. From restaurants and resorts to caterers, couples planning weddings in Highlands and Cashiers have no shortage of choices when it comes to food or service. One location that draws a wedding crowd is Canyon Kitchen and its Chef John Fleer, who has a reputation for great food and has been a James Beard Award finalist. “One of my favorite things about cooking in this beautiful place is making sure that the feel of the food expresses the feeling of this incredible barn in the valley,” Fleer said. “The challenging and exciting part of planning menus for wedding events is blending the vision of the bride and groom into that recipe.”
Fleer creates his menus specifically for each wedding, beginning with a conversation with the families about the foods they enjoy and their vision for the meal. “The most interesting of these events was a marriage of a beautiful Persian bride and a dashing dude from Alabama,” he said. “It was really a lot of fun to reflect the blending of cultures in the wedding food.” Old Edwards Inn and Spa’s executive Chef Johannes Klapdohr is another highly sought-after chef in the Highlands and Cashiers area. Much like Fleer, Klapdohr bases his menu plans around the couple. He said a growing number of couples who hold their weddings at Old Edwards are choosing strolling reception menus with several buffet stations that give more of a party feel to the event. He said for receptions at Old Edwards, he will often have three to four buffet stations throughout the pavilion or tent including an appetizer station, entrée and sides station and an action station. An action station may include macaroni and cheese with fried scallops being prepared there and then all kinds of fixings for guests to choose from including bacon, cheese and green onions that guests can add. A shrimp and grits station is also popular, where the shrimp is prepared with a choice of champagne sauce, succotash or tomato and okra. “The strolling dinner buffets are a great success because it gives us an opportunity to give a great presentation for a lot of different dishes, plus it’s really a lot of fun,” he said. For those who still want a traditional plated dinner, Klapdohr said he will often have the entrees plated and serve a number of sides family style, giving guests the option to choose what they like and decide how much they want. “It’s very accommodating for everybody plus it also allows us to have a nice, clean presentation on the plate,” Klapdohr said.
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