Event Planner

I’ve written before about putting myself out into the world, professionally speaking, some in the last couple of years. The list of attempts continues to grow. Some have been successful, others decidedly not. There have even been a couple of bona fide disasters which I have narrowly escaped with my career still intact. I don’t dwell on those too much, preferring to simply learn from my misses as well as my hits.

This year has been particularly full of events, which usually add to the already sometimes heavy workload that my job entails. If you’ve got a 60 hour week coming up and there’s an event to plan for and attend, it’s simply piled on. It’s a bit of a double edged sword, as most of these extra-curricular activities are genuinely fun and at the end of the day putting our best foot forward is good for the company, which in turn is good for me, but they take a toll on family life and overall sanity – the latter is over rated anyways.

I’ve decided not to take on any more events for the month of November to allow me time to refocus on some work related things that have been escaping my attention. Last weekend, after a particularly big and high profile wine dinner, we participated in the grand tasting at Art of the Cocktail, the second annual festival of all things cocktail related. It’s a pretty big event, spanning three days and multiple venues. And clearly, given the subject matter, you know it’s going to be a pretty good time.

Since this was going to be the last thing till the madness of the Christmas season descends upon us, I wanted to make sure I made it easy on myself, had the chance to have some fun, and most importantly not interfere with the reason people came to an event like this – the cocktail! Brooke had prepared the ‘Japanese Cowboy’, a cocktail consisting of Bulleit bourbon, sake, sweet vermouth and bitters. Pretty tasty all around, and something different to separate himself from the pack. Offering to bring a bit of food for the crowd helped secure us a table, and given the event is a fundraiser for the Victoria Film Festival, I gave it some thought and decided popcorn would fit the bill. Easy, fun, thematic and loved by just about everyone. Saturday of the event I popped 8kg of corn, which yielded about 140 litres of popped corn. Half of it was turned into caramel corn via my wife’s recipe (with the addition of lots and lots of Bulleit bourbon) and the other half was tossed with butter and a seaweed/sea salt mix, to be misted with sake at the event. The ingredients in the cocktail were well complemented, and people were delighted to have food, any food at the event. It got kind of messy by the end of the evening, but you probably had to be there to see it…