A useful hands-on primer.
Blessed are the bean counters, sayeth this savvy guide to the commercial food biz.
Dombeck, a professional caterer, offers something less than a soup-to-nuts encyclopedic treatise on many aspects of catering. Vital topics like sanitary regulations aren’t covered here, and he tells readers who don’t know how to cook to go learn and then come back. But what he does focus on, in straightforward, digestible prose, is the art of wringing a healthy profit out of prepping and presenting good food through a sharp-eyed focus on the bottom line. He starts with the basics of crafting a concept that will appeal to customers—market research can be as simple as asking people what they like to eat and finding out what other local caterers are doing—and hammering out a menu segmented into cheaper and fancier dishes. The bulk of the book takes up money matters: Readers learn how to calculate the cost of ingredients, with allowances for food lost to trimming and shrinkage in cooking; how to price dishes (four times the price of the ingredients is a rule of thumb—unless you can get away with more!); and how to comparison shop between wholesale food vendors and exploit bargains that crop up. Also important, Dombeck continues, is estimating how much food guests will eat so that you neither run out nor throw out. The subtle psychology of portion control is covered in intriguing depth—smaller plates and food pieces yield bigger profits by preventing guests from overloading at the buffet. “Catering is not rocket science,” Dombeck allows, but it does require some math; fortunately, he and co-author Bast present it in clear, easy-to-follow lessons with plenty of examples and sample spreadsheets that make analyzing financial data simple. Their combination of common-sense principles and insider tips—if you give your business a hard-to-pronounce name, he says, potential customers will go elsewhere to avoid pronouncing it—will point neophytes in the right direction.
A useful hands-on primer.Pub Date: April 21, 2013
ISBN: 978-1479294503
Page Count: 184
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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