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Chef Christine Dahl has amazing cake designs. Two of her latest creations are inspired by nature. Her seashell cake features sea shells from around the world or they can be white chocolate.
The Butterfly Cake uses faux butterflies and fondant and marzipan to create a spectacular wedding cake. Both are made in a variety of cake flavors and fillings. My favorite is vanilla chiffon with white chocolate mousse and raspberries.
Chef Michael Hutchings
Seashell Wedding Cake
Monarch Wedding Cake
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Wedding catering requires a great deal of detailed planning. At Michael's Catering, our approach is to ask lots of questions, prepare a great plan and make perfect lists. Surprisingly, the food aspect is the easiest of what we do.
Here are a few things you might want to know about our wedding catering service. While we are not wedding planners per se, we plan many of the aspects of a successfully catered wedding. We place a great emphasis in getting every detail "on paper" to serve as a blueprint for a successful day. Many of the services we provide are akin to "Day of" wedding coordination. We are happy to work with your planner if you have one. Many smaller weddings often rely on a friend or relative. We are happy to supplement this with our our experienced staff.
Wedding FAQS
Planning Your Wedding
How do you approach menu planning? We plan a menu around your personal food preferences, the style of your wedding, your budget and what is seasonal and local.
What style of service do you offer? We offer several style that reflect personal preference, budget and level of formality of your wedding and this includes Tray Passed, Stationary, Small Plates (Tapas), Family Style, Buffet, Served Sit Down, Food Stations, Butler Style and Seated Family Style. Please click Here for details on service style.
What other factors influence style of service? Oftentimes, location will influence service style, whether there is a kitchen available, time considerations and time of year.
Do you offer tastings? We are delighted to do tastings. Due to the high cost of preparing small portions for a tasting, we may have a small fee. We often waive that fee for larger wedding that has booked already and want to have a sense of the cuisine we prepare.
How do you plan the various details for the location? We will meet with you at the location and walk through the entire event. From this we do a detailed scenario, event blueprint, time line, kitchen and scullery plan and power assessment.
Do you charge for cake cutting? We do not.
Do you permit outside food? No, liability consideration means we are the only source of food.
Do you provide food for the other vendors? We need to know what you needs are ahead of time and will provide a meal at an agree upon cost.
What about equipment and rentals? We work with all the rental companies to get you the right equipment at the best price. We suggest what you need, obtain bids and adjust the quantities based on your final guest counts. The delivery and pick up times are specified. You will pay the rental companies directly.
When do you arrive at the catering site? We will work with you to determine the best timing for our arrival. Often we do basic set up earlier in the day with a lower cost crew. At times, we must work around the venues time lines. We put all of this into our time line. We like to be "guest ready" thirty minutes before start time just in case there are early guests arrivals.
What happens when guests arrive? We will help greet your guest with any beverages that have been planned, help with any gifts, direct them to the ceremonial area if applicable or assist with seating as needed.
How do you interact with other vendors? We work with other vendors and the time line to help insure that all that was planned comes to pass including, toasts, first dances and cutting the cake.
What do you do at the close of the event? We restore the event site to its original condition as required by the site contact or better. Rentals are pack for pick up and stored in a pre-determined location. We will inventory the rentals for an additional hourly rate.
There are a thousand other details that are part of the key to success. Call us today to arrange a meeting to start planning your wedding day.
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Chef James Sly, Sly's restaurant in Carpinteria, was guest chef at local private club. Some eighty folks dined on a sampling of chef Sly's classics. Chef James hails from Fullerton, CA but boasts an international training from Monaco to Paris. His eponymous restaurant has put the city of Carpinteria on the culinary map, discounting the Avocado Festival.
Frank Ostini was there to serve his terrific wines from the Hitching Post winery. Frank is famous for his wines, his restaurant ( featured in the coming-of-age flick "Sideways") and his affable nature. Frank's family have had a restaurant in the Santa Ynez Valley for over 50 years.
Sous Vide Cooked Breast of Duckling Salad
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The Santa Barbara News Press ran a story today about the Pixie Tangerine from Ojai, California. In short, they were developed by Howard Frost at UC Riverside in 1927. The pixie tangerine resulted from his open pollenation of Kincy mandarines. They are small, seedless and sweet. The season is March and April.
I took a call from Scott Stapelton, the writer, and offered a couple of great recipes using the tangerines. My pstry chef wife, Christine Dahl of Christine Dahl Pastries, makes a tangerine curd that is piped into a pate sucree tart with white chocolate mousse, tangerine sections and white chocolate straws. They can be made as mini bites or full dessert size.
My contribution was a lobster dish on butternut sauce with a lobster-tangerine sauce. The lobster is steamed until just done. The butternut squash is is cooked in a mixture of tangerine juice, honey, ginger and butter until tender and then pureed. The sauce is a lobster essence infused with saffron, tangerine juice and a touch of sherry vinegar. This dish is finished with a drizzle of chive oil.
This recipe also works well with Santa Barbara spot prawns.
Chef Michael Hutchings
Michael's Catering
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Catering in Santa Barbara provides us with opportunties to serve local and visitng guests. We like to keep up with the trends and keep catering affordable. We offer menus with “Club plates” as they are sometimes called.
Catering menus are trending to tapas style small plate servings. They are mini versions of entrees including the side dish. Hubert Keller at the French Laundry has mastered this for high end dining and now we offer more budget versions. Dishes like pot pies with lobster, four cheese macaroni and cheese with truffle oil, bay scallops with a meyers lemon marinade, salad caprese on skewers with roasted tomatoes are a few examples.
Grilled and Raw Vegetable Display
Soup stations with little sips and designer grilled cheese sandwiches with garnishes like garlic shrimp, braised tri tip of beef elevate the soup and sandwich to a new level. Hanger steak is another great items. It has lots of flavor punch on a lower budget. I like to serve it with wild rice cakes and a mustard sauce.
Indian curries and another great options. Add all the curry condiments like jasmine rice, cucumbers in yogurt, cashews, golden raisins, toasted coconut and you have a whole buffet. We make an authentic curry with over 15 spices and herbs.
Other great ideas are authentic fish and chips using Alaskan cod with malt vinegar, flank steak chimichura, mini Parisian Cre pes and house made pasta cavatelli topped with steaming plum tomatoes diced with fresh basil and roasted garlic.
Michael's Catering
Chef Michael Hutchings
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We made a quick trip to the Santa Barbara Farmers Market to stock up on vegetables. Dinner that night was simple and based on our market foray. We bought some dried herbs (Herbes de Carpinteria) and sauteed fingerling potatoes and onions with chives and Tom Shepherd's herb mix.
A salad of local greens, steamed snap peas and a ribeye steak with spring garlic and meyers lemon filled out dinner.
Tom Shepherd has farmed organically in Santa Barbara since 1973. When I first started cooking at the shuttered Olive Mill Bistro in 1981, Tom was growing his famous salad mix at Hammond's Meadows which is now an upscale housing development at the beach. Tom was selling the dried herbs at $5.00 a scoop and that is a bargain.
Dried Herbs
Snap Peas
Spring Garlic
Potatoes with Sweet Onions and Shepherd's Dried Herbs
Rib Eye Steak, Spring Garlic and Meyers Lemon
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Petite Four Display
Petite fours are the "tapas" of the pastry world. I have always enjoyed making these little bites of heaven. The variety of recipes that can be derived from flour, sugar, eggs, nuts, chocolate and fruit seems endless. One of my favorites are the Earthquake Bites pictured on the left. They are mostly 68% bitter chocolate held together with eggs and a little flour. By some magical means, they split like the San Andreas fault when they are baked.
The big hit of the display though were the beignets. These are not the New Orleans style which are yeast based. These are based on pâte a choux, cream puff dough. Oddly, I first learned to make these when I was working at the Anaheim Disneyland in the New Orleans Square. I was running a little concession that had frozen bananas dipped in chocolate and nuts, assorted drinks and these beignets. Chez Disney's were fist-sized monsters that would feed a family of four. I like to make the mini versions for pastry displays. Do you remember the old Lays Potato Chip advertising program, "Bet you can't eat just one?" That challenge applies here.
Chef Michael Hutchings
Michael's Catering
French Beignets
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The expression, "too many chef's spoil the broth" does not apply to the benefit dinner being held on April 10 for the local YMCA youth programs, Youth and Family Services Branch of the YMCA. Some 18 local chefs will be preparing a six course dinner, three chefs to a course, for some 200 guests at the Rockwood Women's Club. We would love to see you there.
You Tube Video from 2011 Reaching for the Stars Dinner
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: LOCAL CHEFS CREATE AN EVENING TO REMEMBER TO BENEFIT AREA YOUTH
Reaching for Stars, the annual fundraiser supporting Youth and Family Services YMCA (YFS) will be held Tuesday, April 10, 2012 at 6 pm at the Santa Barbara Woman’s Club (Rockwood).
Guests will enjoy a sumptuous, multi-course dinner headed up by Valley Club chef Vincent Vanhecke and prepared by his team of Santa Barbara’s most talented and generous chefs. Local vintners generously donate wine to pair with each menu course, and this year Gainey Vineyard will also host a pre-dinner wine tasting. Proceeds from the event will benefit YFS programs including My Home at Artisan Court, a supportive housing program for emancipated foster youth, Noah’s Anchorage Youth Crisis Shelter, Street Outreach, and the Isla Vista Teen Center.
Chef Charlie Rushton from the Four Seasons Biltmore, a member of Vanhecke’s Reaching for Stars culinary team, was so moved by the young people who spoke at the event in 2011 that he wanted to do more. “Charlie approached us after last year’s Reaching for Stars event and asked ‘What else can I do to help?’”, says YFS Executive Director Lynn Karlson. “He is now teaching monthly cooking classes for the residents at My Home, who are learning to prepare affordable, fresh and healthful meals.” The affable chef has quickly developed a rapport with the young residents, who are developing confidence in the kitchen and in life as a result of their inclusion in the My Home program. According to Karlson, “40% of foster children become homeless within six months when they emancipate at age 18. The goal of My Home is to help prepare them for independence and end the cycle of homelessness.”
This year’s Reaching for Stars Chefs include: Alessandro Cartumini (Four Seasons Biltmore), Brandon Hughes (Wine Cask), Brian Parks (Canary Hotel), Charlie Fredericks (SBCC) Charlie Rushton (Four Seasons Biltmore), Christine Dahl-Hutchings (Christine Dahl Pastries) Don Skipworth (Private Chef), Eric Widmer (La Cumbre Country Club), Greg Murphy (bouchon), James Sly (Sly’s), Mari Bartoli (Private Chef), Michael Blackwell (Montecito Country Club), Michael Hutchings (Michael’s Catering), Mossin Sugish (Blush), Randy Bublitz & Culinary Students (SBCC), Stephane Rapp (SBCC), Vincent Vanhecke (The Valley Club). Vanhecke is especially excited about the opportunity to include a number of young people from the Santa Barbara City College Culinary program on the chef’s team this year. “This year more than ever it is all about the kids,” says Vanhecke, “the kids at Noah’s and My Home and the Teen Center, and the kids in the kitchen helping to prepare dinner for our guests and raise money for the programs.”
“We hope the community will turn out for a great dining experience that benefits a great cause,” says Karlson. Tickets for the event are $200 and can be purchased by calling (805) 569-1103 X32. A limited number of table sponsorships are also available AT $1000-$5000. This year’s event sponsors include Venoco Inc, Steven and Marilyn Gutsche, Santa Barbara Bank & Trust, Ann Jackson Family Foundation, Pete and Gerd Jordano, Joline Godfrey, BB&H Benefit Design and UCSB Student Affairs.
To purchase tickets or for more information, call 805-569-1103 X32 or visit the Youth and Family Services web site.
The Menu
Noah’s Anchorage Menu 2012
HORS D’OEUVRES
A Taste of Asia
SBCC Culinary Students
Randy Bublitz, Stephane Rapp. School of Culinary Arts
Vincent Vanhecke. The Valley Club of Montecito
FIRST COURSE
House Cured Duck Prosciutto with a Citrus Watercress Salad
Royal Trumpet Mushroom Salad with Celery, San Joaquin Gold, Walnut Vinaigrette
Cold Smoked Duck Breast
Won Ton Cup, Goat Cheese Cream, Roasted Yellow Beets, Micro Greens, Basil Oil,
Fleur De Sel, Kalamata Olives
Alessandro Cartumini. Four Seasons Biltmore
Charlie Rushton. Four Seasons Biltmore
Michael Blackwell. Montecito Country Club
SECOND COURSE
Cultured Cocktail Abalone Baked with a Gremolata Butter
Salmon "Soufflé" Auberge de l'île
Cauliflower Horseradish Chaud-Froid, topped with a Paddle Fish Caviar
Micheal Hutchings. Micheals Catering
James Sly. Sly's
Mossin Sugish. Blush Santa Barbara
ENTRÉE
Wagyu New York
Braised Short Ribs
Crispy Sweetbreads
Greg Murphy. bouchon
Brandon Hughes Wine Cask
Charlie Fredericks (and Students) The Restaurant at SBCC
CHEESE
Salade Tropical
Chèvre Medallions with Orange and Cherimoya,
Hollandia Butter Lettuce and Lilikoi Citrus Dressing
with Pistachio Garnish
Don Skipworth. Private Chef
Mari Bartoli. Private Chef
DESSERT
Warm Raspberry Phyllo Cheesecake Triangle
Chilled Raspberry Soufflé
Raspberry Tea Infused Chocolate Mousse Crunch Cake
Christine Dahl. Christine Dahl Pastries
Eric Widmer. La Cumbre Country Club
Jamie West. Private Chef
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Beehive Cake
Christine Dahl, santabarbaracakes.com, made this fun cake for a spring birthday party. The cake is a vanilla chiffon with a marzipan filling and strawberries. The "bees" are made from marzipan, that delicious ground almond paste, that is colored and formed into fanciful shapes.
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Just opened at La Arcada shopping center, Cielito offer an amalgam of sushi mentality, tapas concept and high style Mexican flavors in a hip environment. They headline their food as Artisan Antojitos (Mexican Street foods) that are Mexican inspired cuisine with South American flavors.
Mini lounges and tables on the mezzanine create personal dining vignettes for an intimate soirée of dining and socializing. Copper topped tables, gas flame heaters and a hip atmosphere attract an eclectic crowd.
Trio of Marinated Fish
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