June 1 2010
Well, I’m having a rare day off today so I thought it time for another blog entry. Everything is now getting very busy and as we approach the “wedding season”, I’m beginning to feel that I live in the kitchen.
In recent weeks, I have been approached by three or four companies who specialise in making canapés and desserts asking if they can supply their products to us. I know of other caterers who do this, and sometimes in a weak moment, when I’m up at 6am in the kitchen preparing food for the day, I think, what a good idea and how it would give me one less thing to do and think about.
Then I come to my senses!......I’m pretty well known for my puddings and making all our own food is what we have built our reputation on over the last forty years. I really couldn’t place our reputation in the hands of someone else.
I love cooking and without doubt the most satisfying aspect of the job is the compliments and testimonials we receive from people we have worked for. I really wouldn’t feel comfortable receiving compliments for food I had bought in. So we’ll stick where we are making all our own food, even if it often means getting up at the crack of dawn.
Recently, I have also been the subject of a sales drive by a number of website developers and designers. They’ve all had a look at our website and can improve it for the privilege of charging me £800 to £2000.
I’ve had comments ranging from:
“We could make it a little more professional”. to “I think it needs updating and tweaking a bit” to “you can tell you’ve done it yourself.. It’s a bit amateurish”
I’m confused. Since we’ve had the website, I’ve had quite a lot of compliments about it from people we have worked for and a few people have said it was the main reason they booked us.
As my husband designed it, I was a little apprehensive of telling him what had been said about the website. He’s into marketing and a bit of a free spirit when it comes to marketing ideas. He told me that ultimately, it doesn’t matter what web site designers think, the most important thing is what your customer’s think...... Why don’t you ask them?
So, if you have any suggestions or comments about our website, please let us know. My husband won’t be offended. !!
Kind regards,
Karen
November 2009.
Welcome to our website and my first blog. As someone who is barely computer literate, I'm not totally sure what a blog is, or even if I'm doing it correctly. However,I have been told a website should have a blog, so here goes..... I hope it will be of some interest.
Although, this website is about food, I'd rather talk about something a little different in my first entry.
Therefore, I thought you might like to know about this website and how it came into being. Now, I'm a great believer in sticking to what your good at and for all my working life, some twenty odd years (apart from six months as a hotel receptionist) I've been a chef. Food is my passion, and I can't see myself doing anything else.
Although, we've been in business for nearly forty years we've only had a website for six months or so. I'm a bit of a technophobe and was a little aprehensive of leaping into cyberspace and getting a website. I've never really felt we needed one as we have been fortunate to have established regular work from a number of individuals and organisations over the years and most of our business has come from referrals.
However, a number of my internet savvy friends and hubby have been on at me to get website for a long time and I have finally given in. I gave my husband the job of sorting it out as I wouldn't know where to start.
After reviewing lots of catering websites, we came to the conclusion that most of them are pretty similar. Lots of lovely pictures of wedding venues, stunning marquees, beautiful canapes and food shots, but many seem so very "corporate" to me. I didn't really want to follow this route and wanted to do something a little bit more personal and different that would reflect my passion for homemade food. Therefore we've come up with a website that we've done ourselves, I suppose you'd say..........homemade.!
In catering, food presentation is vitally important, but ultimately it's about the taste. As it's not always possible to provide samples of our food, the most important thing for me was to be able to show you our most recent testimonials. This would give you an accurate, up to date picture of the quality of our food.
I hope you like our website and it gives you a flavour of what we're about. You might like to know my husband accepted no payment for it. A mint aero did the trick.!
Kind regards,
Karen.
February 2010.
Well, its the first week in February, and I've finally got round to another blog entry. So belatedly, I'd like to wish everyone a happy and healthy new year. At the end of every year, I like to look back at what were the most popular dishes in 2009 and the trends appearing in this years bookings and enquiries.
Last year, I seemed to spend alot of time making seafood dishes. I think together with our Salmon, Leek and Dill lasagne, our luxury fish pie has been one of our most popular dishes last year. I like to use smoked haddock, cod loin and fresh salmon in my fish pie, so much so that my fish monger has now started to call me rather than me call him.!. Traditional favourites carried on being popular, Beef in Wine, Chicken Tagine, Chicken tikka etc, so its likely I'll continue offering these dishes through this year.
In the forthcoming year, we seem to have had a lot of enquiries for more informal buffet style weddings either with hot or cold food. Whether, this is a trend or just down to the continuing increasing costs of weddings I don't know, but a buffet style wedding can be quite alot cheaper than a traditional sit down meal.
Finally, I've had to introduce a new policy as we have had to turn down a few bookings and disappoint a few people already this year. As most private functions are on a saturday, sometimes we can have three or four enquiries for the same day in the summer within a week. We are not a company that likes to push you for a decision, so,should we quote you for your function, we reserve the date for you for three days from the date of quotation. Thereafter, other confirmed bookings may be accepted and our availability may change.
Kind Regards,
Karen