I'm a BUSINESS, man. — Arielle Giusto

One day I had an empty calendar, bare feet, a great suntan and dirt clogging my fingernails, and the next day my phone was ringing off the hook and I was all booked up. Five events in one week meant my catering business was officially rocking and I retreated inside for many, many hours in the kitchen. I have been fortunate to get a lot of referrals from nice people who like me, and even more fortunate to book a lot of different kinds of events - variety is truly the spice of life. I swung from a private school garden party to a catalog photo shoot to a dinner at a crazy beautiful Belvedere home.

I did not know what to expect from the Pendelton catalogue photo shoot. I imagined a bunch of awkward crew members too busy to pay attention to what they were eating. I imagined them draining my pot of coffee and without a way to make more, I then imagined an angry mutiny against the caterer. I imagined nothing like what it turned out to be. The crew and models were charming and interesting, a mish mash of freelance artsy folk who were very into food. Because I went the extra mile, made them hot fried egg sandwiches, brought my own jams and hot sauce, warmed the big crusty country loaves to serve next to a slab of tempered butter, they were now very into my food.

Yes I had to drag myself out of bed when it was still dark out. Yes I had to transport and schlep a full carload of equipment and food. Yes I actually enjoyed it. The things I saw those mornings, fog slowly lifting over Tomales Bay, Tule elk munching through the sunrise at the Pt Reyes National Seashore, the kids loading up onto the school bus in Stinson on their way over the hill (just like we used to!), was so worth a bit of groggy eye. Best of all was the appreciation from the crew. The days are long and slow for them, and meal time is what they look forward to most. And when you're cooking from the heart, with attention to detail and some soul, it shows. It was a happy crew with happy bellies! They even let me hang around and watch them work, explaining the details of what each person's role is and how it all comes together. I was fascinated by the intricate dance of ten people working together to make one shot. On the last day, we all hugged.

So what's the name of the catering company? It's me! I'm not a businessman. I'm a business, man.

May 11, 2020

Mating Dance

April 1st and it is the 23rd anniversary of my mother’s death. Usually I go walk the beach, to the place where we scattered her ashes and where she spent her last years, but it’s 2020 and the beaches are closed so instead I go for a walk around the block. In my seventh month of pregnancy now and my feet have started to ache from the extra weight, so the walk starts out slowly, gingerly. I conjure her here, in step beside me - Suzanne Segal, born on Friday the 13th and died on April Fool’s Day. Was that her ridiculous way of encouraging us to see some of the humor, the lightness of life? Those deep dimples and that shrieking laugh are with me as much today as they were decades ago.

February 20, 2020

santa fe, NM 1995

My mom and I got off the plane in Albuquerque and headed for the white Isuzu Trooper we kept parked at the airport. After our first few visits to New Mexico, when my mom had properly fallen in love with the landscape and started buying property – all sagebrush and pink dirt – she decided we needed our own car there. This one was properly beat up enough to fit in, as I learned after my eyes had adjusted from the bombastic wealth of the Bay Area to this perennially poor state. But the colors! Even on the license plates! The flamboyant yellow, red and turquoise delighted me, set as they were against the glow of the high desert. I suppose we both were in love with this new frontier.

December 15, 2019

Peeking through the Back Door

I have always felt most at home in restaurant kitchens. No matter how glossy the paint or how shiny the brass door handle on the imposing front door to the dining room, there is always a dinged up, unmarked back door that leads to the real heart of the beast. It took a few weeks into my first cooking job at The Olema Inn to get used to the complete lack of glamour of it all. Only now do I see how the paucity of it helped to form our psyches, ordained us cooks with the chips on our shoulders and the swagger in our steps. We’re here to do the real work. We don’t need no fancy door.