Or, how we helped transform the Royal Oak Music Theatre into the city that never sleeps!

I have not been to New York City. I have yet to snag a hot dog from the street corner before visiting the Museum of Natural History or to see Little Italy. Having never visited this city of wonders and culinary delights, it seemed a daunting task when I was asked to recreate the New York street food experience for a Bat Mitzvah at the Royal Oak Music Theatre. As intimidated as I was to create a simile of something sight unseen, I knew the resources I had at my disposal were vast and varied.

It was a sunny day in July when I was called down from the catering office to meet a guest on the deli floor. There I met the parents (we'll call them Rich and Sarah) of a lovely young lady who was approaching the milestone celebration of her Bat Mitzvah in December. It was hard to begin to visualize something that seemed a half of a lifetime away, but I was willing to give it a whirl. They began giving me the specifics of the event, including seven food stations that were meant to mimic some of the culinary icons of NYC. They wanted us to provide most of the food, the staff, as well as the props and decorations for the stations. There were many other players involved who contributed to the rest of the event and handled the music, dancers, performers, and guest table decorations.

I was scribbling down details as fast as I could but I had little chance of keeping up with the practiced chaos that is the banter of Rich and Sarah. The words of the two danced and moved and made me dizzy. I could tell that they knew each other so well they anticipated what the other was saying and responded to it before the other got there. It created this lovely mosaic of sound, almost visual strands of words winding around each other.

I remember Sarah apologizing for all the specific details she was asking us to take on but that she had a vision and wanted to see it come to life. This idea of having a vision is nothing new to me and I could completely understand and respect the notion of wanting it to materialize just the way it appeared in her head.

The planning was intense and ever-changing and I probably revised the proposal 12 times before I had the version that would become the working outline for the event. For the look and feel portion (which other than the food this was the most spectacular part of this event), I went to Erica Perreault, the Manager of Deli MerchandiZing, and we began discussing the different stations and the decorations we should use for each one. Luckily for me, Erica has spent a significant amount of time in the Big Apple and was able to visualize exactly what we needed to accomplish. The seven stations were to be: Soup Kitchen International (famous for being featured in an episode of Seinfeld), Little Italy, Chinatown, Delicatessen, Coney Island Hot Dog Cart, Serendipity, and Dylan's Candy Bar. Erica and I talked about what we thought each station should look like — including a poster-sized sign for each one. These signs were designed by Erica and hand painted by the Deli's Marcie Palmer. They were a cornersone to the overall scene. It really was a scene, too.

The 300 guests walking into the Royal Oak Music Theatre on December 1, 2007 probably felt that they were walking into another world. Along the walls where movie posters usually hung were the young hostess's dance outfits from the time she was a little girl to the present. Over ten dance outfits, glad to have been pulled from the mothballs and celebrated once more, created a corridor down the lobby.

In the center was the first of the food stations, with hot soup meant to warm the guests up for a night in the big city. It was the first snow storm of the winter, and the soup was a welcome sight for those coming in from the cold. Both mushroom barley and tomato soups were served up onto stainless steel counters and even though there was a list of rules posted not a guest was told "no soup for you!"

Mingling among the guests in the lobby were street performers. Two women dressed in Victorian garb were walking on short stilts, gliding along, unaware of the crowd around them. They both wore two-foot high powdered wigs and elaborate beaded dresses, headed for a party of the past. Another sort of performer — this one with assorted open briefcases — also made his way through the crowd, offering to "sell" guests "designer" wristwatches, sunglasses, and jewelry — at a discount rate, of course.

After an hour of arriving, warming up with a hot cup of soup, checking their coats and greeting each other, the mass of friends and relatives moved into the main theatre to continue their evening of merriment in celebration of Marisa's Bat Mitzvah. The main theatre was an open auditorium teeming with servers (15 from Zingerman's alone and probably another 12 from the theatre's staff), guests, circus performers from Cirque USA, disc jockeys, professional photographers, sound technicians and others. Several performers were already on the stage, suspended from the ceiling by long strands of ribbon, twirling and dancing in mid-air. The music blared and a lightshow flashed on the walls. I felt the way I imagined I might stepping into Carnegie Hall. It was an atmosphere of opulence and wonder, whimsy and overwhelming delight. Each guest table was covered in confetti and had a center piece of dancing shoes with giant mylar balloons floating overhead like tiny zeppelins, enjoying the view.

Each of the food stations were their own private environments and should have been across the city from one another, not across the room. Chinatown was adorned with Chinese lanterns and piles of chopsticks and fortune cookies. The Delicatessen was a replica of our Deli floor, complete with shelves of mustards, whole salamis and 80lb. wheels of cheese — I know they were 80lbs. because I hauled one into the theatre. We served corned beef sandwiches and pickles and olives. It was the classic fare that marks any exceptional deli. The Dylan's Candy Bar station was covered in jars of different sizes stuffed with delectable varieties of candy. The Coney Island station was an actual hot dog cart with all of the traditional Coney Island condiments including all-beef chili and hot peppers. It looked so authentic that I imagined a vendor standing on a New York street corner wondering where his cart had been teleported to. Little Italy, with its candles in wicker-covered wine bottles, looked like a picture out of a magazine. Two chefs were poised at the end of the table, tossing pasta to order in one of our two sauces. Each guest could choose from either our rustic and hearty marinara or our silky, refined pesto sauce. Complete that plate with a portion of our roasted Atlantic salmon and some traditional Caesar salad and you've just met a star of the show.

The details that went into this event were unbelievable and very well thought out. Each guest had a name card attached to a 4" long miniature NY taxi cab, so realistic you could imagine chewing gum stuck on the back seat. Each station's sign was customized to include Marisa's name or the name of a close member of her family (the deli — Noah's Noshery — was named after her younger brother).

The festivities went on well into the night. Dancers wowed the audience with feats that defied gravity and then invited the guests to join them on the stage. The service staff were a blur of efficiency, maintaining and restocking stations. The snow continued to whirl and accumulate outside but inside the Royal Oak Music Theatre we were all tucked snugly inside our fantasy New York; the apple without the serpent in tow. So while I have not visited the City That Never Sleeps, I have tasted the juice that dribbles from its chin and I can tell you... that cider is spiked.

As a last note I would like to say thank-you to all of the people who helped make this event something I won't ever forget. A large undertaking is never a one person job and this had almost as many helping hands as there were guests at the party.