So, nibbly bits. About 100 each of blood orange tarts (by which I mean "blood orange," a type of citrus, not "blood and oranges" which is creepy), avocado bruschetta, baklava, and mahi-mahi ceviche with red onion, jalapeno, and toasted coconut. The first three items had vanished within the first half hour, the cups of ceviche lasted a while longer than that, and I filled in the resulting gaps with cookies and carrots brought by the girl with whom ArtStudent shared the gallery space. While I was clearly less nervous about the evening than my roommate for whom the food was prepared in the first place, I still managed to scurry around the room in my brown suit and my pink hair, picking up used napkins and rearranging Pepperidge Farm products with more than a touch of nervous twitchery.

Based on that experience, I started thinking about what it would be like to be an actual caterer. Where I do that sort of thing for, you know, money. Looking at a lot of the menus caterers post online (think Swedish Meatballs and Buttered Noodles and Roast Beef au jus), I have a feeling that I might be able to offer something a little more out of the ordinary.

Of course, as soon as I get to that point in the thought process, my brain leaps out of my head and starts gibbering and running around in increasingly panicked circles. It is an idea that is at once a) huge, b) terrifying, c) very very grown-up, and d) mystifying in terms of what one should do to begin it. So today after work, I am taking my increasingly distressed sciatic nerves to a bookstore to pick up the equivalent of Catering For Dummies to see if I might actually be able to pull this off.

My sister suggested "[insert word here that completes the phrase '____ silver' and usually describes your fancy flatware] Catering," as both an homage to my teensy nephew, and a way of evoking a perception of high-class. Little Owl has suggested "bee pie catering" (all lower-case, of course) because I think that bee is a very funny word and pie is a very very funny word, so "bee pie" together just might be the cutest phrase ever coined.

I can see it, though. A while down the road, of course. Catering an event taking place on a rooftop somewhere in Manhattan. City lights all around. Music floating on the breeze. Tapers everywhere. And me, directing the flow of food and waiters like a conductor.