Food Finally Finalized!!

I am very excited to finally share some of the details of our catering! As you may have read in my earlier post, we are having a cocktail style reception. We have been working diligently to convey our vision for our reception in many a catering meeting. I am so happy to report that we finally found a caterer who gets it. Zingerman’s Catering it is! For those of you from Michigan (particularly the Ann Arbor area) you may already know all about Zingermans. They started as a small deli in the 1980’s and have expanded their business to be a staple of the Ann Arbor Community by serving quality fresh made foods. The food and the service are sure to be amazing. Check out this excerpt from their website.

We pride ourselves on treating our guests like royalty (in fact, we’ve written a book about it). With Zingerman’s Catering and Events you can be confident that the service will be five star.

So far we have received great service from our contact, Laura. Exceptional service is a wonderful thing, but if the food is no good, it doesn’t really matter. Trust me when I say this, the food is going to be delicious! We had four people at the menu tasting in March: Evan, me, Evan’s Mom, Jane and Evan’s sister, Jessica. We all left stuffed and satisfied. Here were some of the favorites:

Bruschetta

Our Bakehouse baguette is made to eat the same day it is baked, with a thin crispy crust and a soft interior. Grilled baguette slices are topped with a creamy spread made with Zingerman’s Creamery cream cheese and imported Italian Roi pesto, or fresh tomatoes with fresh basil.

We sampled two types of Bruschetta, tomato and pesto. Both were absolutely delicious! This was probably my second favorite thing that we tasted. I was on the fence about serving bruschetta, but after tasting this, we knew it was a must have.

Meat Skewers

Marinated chicken with spicy peanut sauce, ginger and balsamic vinegar.

When talking about how we should serve meat, a skewer sounded like a great option. You don’t need a knife to eat off a skewer and it keeps everything bite-sized so you can grab as many or as few as you like. We are going with the chicken skewer which should hopefully be a crowd pleaser.

Italian Platter

Classic antipasti at its absolute best. We selected the best of our Italian salamis and cheeses and curated a selection just for you, featuring genoa salami handkerchiefs, Parmigiano-Reggiano bites and aged provolone pyramids.

Another item we were “on the fence” about was the antipasti platter. We narrowed the selection down significantly from all the items we tasted, but let me tell you, I could eat handfuls of the parmigiano-reggiano. This will be a nice little bite for people who like some salty cheeses and salamis.

Meatballs

A very old family recipe from food writer Elizabeth Minchilli’s Italian mother-in-law. Served in homemade tomato sauce. We use local beef from D-Kay Cattle.

Meatballs are a little less formal for a wedding, but these were my absolute favorite thing that we tasted. They were delicious at room temperature which is most likely how they will be served. I didn’t want a big steel warmer as part of our food display, so I am happy that they could work with us on that.

I am confident that the food will be a memorable part of our day because of the beautiful display, great service and amazing tastes. I can not wait to chow down. I hope someone saves me a plate!