Horror of horrors - is it time for me to get out there and play with the big boys?! Say it isn't so! Who's going to be at this event again? Nyonya - my favorite Malaysian spot in all of NYC. Laut - best Malaysian restaurant outside of Chinatown and Flushing. Bentara - named Best Malaysian Restaurant outside of Malaysia. THE BIG BOYS! And little ol' me?!!!
The email explained that as long as I could get all my paperwork in to them by noon the next day, I could participate. I can't explain it, something took ahold of my timid little newbie chef soul and made me do it. I was a woman possessed. I put Neena to bed that night, printed out the copious amounts of paperwork, then meticulously went through each and every page. I was at the Department of Health at 8:45 the next morning and by 10:30am I was at the offices of RF|Binder who were organizing the entire event with the completed paperwork and DOH permit in hand. I left their office at around 11am - it was a freezing Winter's day, but my heart was on fire, and my mind was about to explode! WHAT HAVE I DONE?!!!!
With less than two weeks to go, I set to work planning - figuring out portions, scaling up my recipes. I was making four dishes - Beef Rendang Sliders, Chili Crab Sliders, Sweet & Spicy Ikan Bilis, & CocoDew, a coconut milk, honeydew and pearl tapioca beverage. I've made all these things for various Farmers' Markets and fancy night markets before, but never in these quantities. I started sharing the event on FB and on Twitter. If I was going to be cooking tons of food, I wanted to make sure that people knew where I would be and come eat it.
Friends started calling and emailing with offers of help - cooking help, schlepping help, serving help. I picked a couple of friends to help - people whom I knew I could count on to be there, to be extra eyes and hands, to stay out of the way yet be a part of the process. I shopped and shopped. I cooked and cooked and cooked.
Tuesday night before the event, my dear friend Amy Goff who had been cooking with me since Monday decided that we needed a drink and some play time with Neena before we went to bed. My poor neglected little girl - mommy had been in Auria's Malaysian Kitchen mode for days. We built the "Empire State Smiley-Face Building" with her. Many rounds of "Sequin Patterns" a made up game of ours and three rum and cokes later, I went to bed.
I can't really explain it, but I had been operating on auto-pilot since early Monday morning. The best way to explain it is that parts of my brain were shut down and other parts were working overtime. The bad parts were silenced. The good parts were enhanced. I felt some sort of magic surrounding the entire process.
February 20th. I'm up at 5am. I'm down in the kitchen making the CocoDew. 7am - Patrick Meyer shows up - the brawn (and the brains, we later realize :o) of the operation. We're on our way to Bryant Park before 8am.
The lunch session was supposed to begin at 11:30, but by 11am there were eager folks milling about our table, waiting impatiently for us to get going. We were working on setting up our stations and figuring out the flow for the sliders etc. First we decided that I would be in the back putting the sandwiches together. The Trade Commissioner came by for a quick chat. He said "You're one very lucky woman - do you know how lucky you are?" A couple of media people came by as well and Amy, in all her wisdom said "You need to be in the front, talking to people. Because this is your thing and you need to be the one talking to everyone!"
At 11:30, we put our gloves on and our heads down and went to work. We didn't get a second to look up until 2:30 when the lunch session was done. There was a line extending to my right that I could not see the end of, and that I never did see the end of. The RF|Binder people came up now and then to let me know that I had a line extending all the way to the front doors of the tents. Someone from NBC came over to talk to me, but there wasn't a moment to spare. Apparently the crowd was hungry and the crowd had to be fed. Various friends came by - some waited in the line and told me how long they had waited. Others just came up to me and said "This line in crazy, I'm not waiting in line - I'll just come to your house for dinner!" :o)
After the lunch session was over, Amy, Patrick and I went to a nearby cafe and collapsed into chairs with coffee. I was a little overwhelmed by what had just happened. Folks had told us that they had been in line for 40 minutes. Friends were talking pictures of the line to show me what was going on. We all decided that the same thing couldn't possibly happen during the dinner session. How wrong we were. It was even crazier at dinner time. We began at 5:30 and by 7:15 were completely sold out of everything. Each time, the Chili Crab was the first to go, followed by the Sweet & Spicy Ikan Bilis, followed by the CocoDew and finally the Beef Rendang.
http://youtu.be/1mZ1b1Ocpy0
The same thing happened the following day but with a much longer line at both the lunch and dinner sessions. I'm not gloating or boasting, but merely stating a fact when I say that there weren't any lines for the other vendors at this event. Ok, ok, I'm gloating. I wouldn't be human if I wasn't. The organizers told me that Nyonya had a line about 10 deep for a little while at lunch the day before - as they should, considering that's where I go when I crave the flavors of home. The crew at the table to my left were standing there with arms crossed pretty much the entire time. The crew on my right were upset that my line was "preventing people from getting to their table". When we arrived at 9am on the second day of the event, the organizers had set up stanchions and rope to guide our line so that it wouldn't block access to the other tables. At lunch on that 2nd day, folks were coming up and buying six of each kind of slider. In hindsight, I'm wondering if we should have put a limit on how many sliders each person could buy. You know, just to spread the love around. Yes, no, maybe?
My friend Frank Simms said "I TOLD you you invited too many people! I stopped by TWICE and it was like backstage at a Madonna concert. I stood in line for 30 minutes and moved 3 feet! No other food stalls had anywhere near as many people queuing up. Congratulations!! Now you can begin opening chains all over the country and buy an island! I'd wait in line for this cooking ANYTIME!"
A fellow Kitchensurfing chef, Henrietta Bagazonzya said "I longed to be inside the heated tents, but the long line that started at the entrance of the park was to my surprise specifically for one Malaysian vendor - Auria's Malaysian Kitchen. I thought, 'this can't be...one line?' An hour later, I was finally at the front of the line and it was worth the wait folks! Beef rendang on a slider that melted in my mouth like butter ya'll!"
Turns out that it wasn't such a big deal playing with the big boys at this event after all. It's not how much you've done, or what you've done or how much of a name you've made for yourself. If you throw enough heart and passion into something, then get yourself out of the way - magic happens!
In the picture below, taken from the outside of the tents, you can see the crew at the first table on the right watching the action at our table. Then AMK next to them with the line extending to the left all the way out the front doors of the tents.
