PP011 | Sheba Anvari | Local Sauce | Event Catering
Local-Sauce
Sheba’s company is Local Sauce. They provide catering for a range of needs, from fresh, seasonal home cooking fridge filling, to a full waited service for the bigger events in life. Local Sauce is rapidly establishing itself in the hearts of many for its delicious food and bespoke, friendly service. Founded by eternal foodie and Leiths graduate Sheba prides herself on using the freshest ingredients to create dishes from the classic to the innovative.
In this episode you will discover
How to prepare for a large event in a small kitchen.
Why Sheba completely changed direction in her career.
How Sheba has moved across various styles of catering and found her niche.
Links
Local Sauce - Event Catering LeithsLeith ListSheba's Food on Instagram
Transcript
Sheba Anvari: I loved the feeding of people, so then...Toby Goodman: Jewish attributeSheba: Yeah exactly, and Muslim attribute, I’ve got it both going on. So when the time came, it was very obvious to me, that, rather than doing music, I wanted to go and do cookery.Narrator: Toby and James are involved in amazing events all over the world. You’re listening to The Planner’s Planner Podcast, where top event professionals share real world experiences and cutting-edge ideas. Sponsored by MetropolisProductions.co.uk.Toby: Hello, and welcome to The Planner’s Planner Podcast. I’m Toby Goodman back again with James Eager. How are you today, James?James Eager: I’m really good Toby Goodman, are you well?Toby: Yeah, good, thanks, mate. So, today I talk with international chef Sheba Anvari from Local Sauce. They’re based in London. Sheba has been hired by some world-famous people, none of whom she’s allowed to mention for contractual reasons, but you can be assured it’s quite big time. Sheba is also a modest character. Once we’d ended this podcast conversation she told me that although she didn’t have any further work coming up in New York, she’s off to LA soon, so, that should give you a little bit of an idea about the level she works at. And James, for a bit of context, other than an interesting mixed heritage, what did you find especially interesting about Sheba’s background?James: Yeah, Sheba was a string player at Guild Hall, you’ll hear her allude to that in the interview. Pretty similar to our background, really. Guild Hall is a pretty serious place musically, you have to be of pretty amazing standard, it’s part of one of the four major conservatoires for music in London, so you can be assured that she spent many hours in the practice room, but then obviously a couple of years in decided that food was her passion. So, you can hear a little bit of her journey into that world.Anyway, we’d like to thank you all for the amazing feedback we’ve had on the podcast, please keep it coming, we do love to hear it. If so, if you could pop over to iTunes and leave us a review, it would mean a hell of a lot to us, and, on another note, we’re also close to rebranding Metropolis by rolling the three things we do into one site, that is live music, event planning, and, of course, podcasts and new media. So, if you’re ready to take your event business to the next level, we’d really, really like to hear from you. So, let’s not mess around too much further, here’s Toby’s interview with Sheba Anvari, I will see you at the other end.Toby: Okay, see you later.Narrator: The Planner’s Planner Podcast is sponsored by MetropolisProductions.co.uk and Metropolis-Live.com.Toby: Your company’s called Local Sauce.Sheba: Yes, spelled S-A-U-C-E.Toby: Oh, yeah, because I can’t write in my notes.Sheba: Nope.Toby: Thanks for reading my notes, that’s what you get when you come here.Sheba: Right, sorry.Toby: Sorry. Spelt, “sauce.”Sheba: As in “saucy bitch.”Toby: Or... tomato.Sheba: Or sauce you put in a bowl.Toby: Yeah, that’s probably a bit better, isn’t it?Sheba: Better, right, okay.Toby: I don’t care. Um, okay. So, how did it all start, where are you from, where did you grow up?Sheba: I grew up in Putney, and it started because I was at music college, at Guild Hall, and I was doing from on entry, less practice than I did to get in, but what I was doing was having lots of people over all the time to eat, and I started just realizing that that’s more what I wanted to do, than spend hours in a practice room learning how to play to viola.Toby: So, did you always cook?Sheba: Yeah. I always cooked. My mother is a terrible cook, and my grandmother’s amazing at cooking, so I kind of always... she’s an amazing, good Jewish grandmother who made challah every week, and all this kind of thing, and my mother just hated cooking, and so, from about thirteen, twelve, thirteen, I started cooking quite a lot.Toby: Yeah.Sheba: And I loved it. I loved the feeding of people...Toby: Jewish attributeSheba: Yeah exactly, and Muslim attribute, so I’ve got it both going on.Toby: Yeah.Sheba: So, when the time came it was very obvious to me that, rather than doing music, I wanted to go and do cookery. I didn’t really know anything about cookery and I’d inherited a little bit of money, so I poured it straight into studying it at Leiths School of Food and Wine.Toby: Where is that?Sheba: It is in Shepherds Bush now, it was in Kensington.Toby: Okay.Sheba: And their course is amazing, and I kind of went from Guild Hall, where I had a great time, but not because I was learning there, it was just because I was having a great time, to Leiths where I learned – it’s a really structured course, which is very different. You’re kind of in at nine, you cook ‘til about one, and then you have a lecture about what you’re cooking the next day ‘til about five, five days a week.Toby: Wow.Sheba: And I just loved the structured of it, and I loved… It’s an amazing thing when you’re all learning together from the same point, and, so relevant of where people have come from, you have to learn how to make hummus together. Kind of amazing.Toby: And is that a specific qualification? Or…Sheba: Yeah, it’s a diploma.Toby: Okay, and so who… a sort of range of different characters on that course, ex-music student…?Sheba: Yeah, everyone from… there were kids who were 18, I was in the youngest group, I was 21 when I started, so they had it in age groups rather than ability groups, or information groups. And they…so, there’s people from 18 who’ve just left school, who are kind of – I don’t know, they were doing it because their parents wanted them to do it, or it was their gap year before they were going to go to university – right up to people who’d been in banking for 20 years and had decided, “No, I want to be a chef and run a restaurant…”Toby: Right, so full on career change to sensible life skills.Sheba: Yeah, exactly.Toby: Wow.Sheba: So, it was fun, really fun. I loved it. It was the best year of my life.Toby: What was the best thing you learned, in terms of how to cook, that you hadn’t done before? What were the things you weren’t doing before that now you do all the time?Sheba: Well, it’s just a basic understanding of how dishes work, how flavours work, how the skills – I just didn’t have a lot of skills, like how to make a hollandaise sauce, it’s very kind of obvious to me now, but then, I hadn’t sat and learnt it.Toby: Yeah.Sheba: And it just… I didn’t think it’s something that you couldn’t learn in a variety of other ways. Like if you went through a cookbook on your own for a year doing every single thing, but it teaches you their style of doing it, which is like, creates a precision that will…I definitely didn’t possess or have any interest in previously.Toby: Yeah. And I suppose with group learning and learning in an environment where people are there rather than a book, you’re finding out all the ways…Sheba: …not to do it, exactly.Toby: Not to do it. And then watching the experts correct and save, or destroy dishes, I suppose.Sheba: Yeah, exactly. Well, also going through recipes and seeing how they’re written down and how actually that’s not probably the best way to do it often, which you wouldn’t have, obviously, with just a book.Toby: So how old were you when you finished that?Sheba: It’s just a year’s course.Toby: Yeah.Sheba: So, 22.Toby: 22, and then what happened?Sheba: Then I went straight from there into being the sole caterer – I wasn’t really a caterer, I was an in-house chef, for a barrister’s chambers. So, my job was to do all of their lunches and teas, and biscuits, and cakes, and take it to them, and they’d bring clients back, and I’d have to bring it. But, the thing that was difficult about the job wasn’t really the food, it was more you never knew how many people, you know, someone would call up and be like, “Actually, we’ve got six people coming back from court now,” and you have this kind of, “Oh, god, I’ve got – how – I don’t know how to do that!” But, obviously, it always worked, because it has to work.Toby: Yeah. So you have to have a certain amount of stock in…Sheba: Yeah. It was a stock thing, but it was also about how much you’re cooking, because irrelevant of how much stock you’ve got, you have to kind of be aware that you need to make enough that maybe 40 people will return, or maybe five. If you’re cooking for 40 it’s much easier than if you cook for five and then 40 people… things like that.Toby: Yeah, so, well, I mean, the timings for food is incredible, I think.Sheba: Yeah, so you’d have to know – yeah, that’s another thing, all the food really had to be ready by 11:30, and it should be able to keep ‘til about 14:30-15:00, because everyone was coming back at a variety of times.Toby: Yeah.Sheba: But it wasn’t – the challenge of it died relatively quickly, and that’s when I decided I wanted to go into private work, working in houses, and from there it’s got bigger and bigger, and it’s just – I think what I’ve been doing is just chasing a new challenge every time. So, I finished that one and started doing private work, and that became doing more parties, and that became doing weddings and much bigger parties, and now doing corporate work, and doing – I don’t know, now I kind of want to do supper clubs, and things like that, so I’m just kind of constantly trying to work out the next phase.Toby: So, more event based.Sheba: Exactly.Toby: So, going back to once you’d left that chambers job, you weren’t feeling stretched at the end, and that’s why you went into… So, tell me houses. Obviously you’re not allowed to mention the exclusivity and all that kind of stuff, because you’ve worked with some serious people, but what sort of day of the week is that… I mean, I don’t have a chef in my house, so…Sheba: You don’t? You should probably get one.Toby: You know. So, tell me about what type of environment is that. Was that an alien environment? Were you used to that sort of wealth?Sheba: There have been moments I’ve been shocked and amazing by certain things that go on in these houses. It’s usually to do with child care that I’m shocked and amazed, because, things like each child has its own nanny, despite the fact that there’s a mother hanging around the house.Toby: Right.Sheba: Which I’m amazed by. Or, the quantity of people cleaning the house and the quantity of time spent cleaning the house.Toby: Yeah.Sheba: Those things are quite incredible. And the houses themselves are obviously pretty luxurious places.Toby: So, London, or…?Sheba: All over the place. I’ve done London, I’ve been in Italy, there are people who want holiday chefs, so I go and cook in a castle in Italy, or I work in a really beautiful stately home in Norwich, that is what Downton Abbey is kind of based on, that kind of thing. And it’s quite interesting being in these different environments, the types of people, because they have a real range of types of money to people, which I would never have known before entering that sphere, that of new money versus old money, and this kind of thing, and how staff are treated, and… luckily for me I’ve always been treated really well, I think because I’m quite friendly, which has been quite important.Toby: Is there a set thing where you say, “This type of money treats people badly, and this type of money treats people well?” Or does it vary?Sheba: It varies, but, in my mind, I can’t state which, but, yeah.Toby: Right, of course. Alright. So, how did you position yourself to get a private job after working…?Sheba: After chambers? Well, because I trained at Leiths, I joined – I was automatically joined to their agency, Leiths List.Toby: Ah, and that’s the benefit of getting that qualification?Sheba: Yeah, I’m not sure if they take people on that haven’t been – they may do, but it’s a very easy thing to do if you have been there to call up and say… yeah, to do an interview or anything, they know who you are.Toby: So, credible, you’ve gone through a process, you know what you’re doing, you’ve passed, you’re on the list.Sheba: Yeah, and I joined – so I called them when I finished and I called a number of other domestic staff agencies who have been really amazing. The thing that’s kind of weird about it is that they don’t know what you’re cooking’s like apart from the feedback from their clients, but I think I’ve always had pretty positive feedback, so that’s been alright for me.Toby: Yeah.Sheba: But that’s really how I did the private thing, and the private thing is what’s grown it into bigger events. It’s been like friends of people that I’ve worked for and it’s people that I’ve worked for regularly rather than one-off things.Toby: Yeah, and so you’re building up referrals and your own… things.Sheba: And my own client base.Toby: So, when you did… So, when did you decide to call yourself Local Sauce?Sheba: Well, I kind of decided about a year into doing the private work, that I wanted to do something that was going to be filling fridges and freezers more than anything else.Toby: That’s part of the private gig, isn’t it, I suppose? The private job.Sheba: Exactly. And so I did that, and I was like, “I want to have a name that’s not me,” and it was me and a friend of mine from Leiths originally that thought of this idea, and then she went on to work in a similar thing to the chambers thing, and she quite liked the reliability of money, I guess.Toby: Yeah.Sheba: Because, obviously when you go freelance, you don’t know what you’re going to get.Toby: Yep!Sheba: So, she went off to do that, and I set this thing up, but in reality the concept of what Local Sauce is constantly changed as I’ve decided that actually I want to do more bigger events, or, now supper clubs, or recently I just – I’m not very good at social media, I’ve just started getting into it, and I joined Instagram and saw all these people making amazing cakes, and it annoyed me, and then I made some, and that’s kind of really taken off – so in the last month and a half I’ve suddenly become a baker, which I never expected to become.Toby: Is that technically baking, or is that a pastry chef? What’s the official term?Sheba: My official term is “baking,” because it’s more cake related than pastry related, I guess.Toby: Right.Sheba: So, yeah, and that’s been quite interesting, because as those have really kicked off, the other stuff is really kicked into gear as well, because you’re sending out all these photos which people really like, and their reminded of other food that they’ve seen that you do, or they’re like, “Oh, well call her up about this.” And that’s kind of been a good kick-starter for other things that have been going on.Toby: So, as you sell one service that might be fridge filling, you’re making people aware that you might be able to make them a really nice cake for a special event.Sheba: Yeah, exactly. Or, I’ve been doing my own kind of promotional thing, so I was in a band – I have some friends who are in a very band now, called Clean Bandit, and they had a massive gig at Alexandre Palace, and I made them a cake, and they Tweeted it, and Instagram’d it, and then another friend of mind works at this company and she said, “Bring us one,” and I did that, and now I’m doing all their catering for various events coming up that I’m going to kind of go to. So, it’s been – it’s a weird thing, I guess, because that’s a product that people can understand, that they can buy into, that then it becomes…they’ll buy into the service, rather than…Toby: Yeah, of course. So, now you’re in a situation where you’ve got a team of people that you have to employ and hire to deliver that service, especially when it’s the bigger stuff.Sheba: Yeah.Toby: So, how do you plan that? How do you do that?Sheba: Well, I’ve got an amazing front-of-house man who kind of – who I turn to on all these occasions, and he is amazing. I mean, when we do events, weddings, parties, anything, he kind of acts as though he’s in an A&E situation, he’s just very focused, and I – my general thing is to be quite relaxed. My whole, like, I did a wedding this Saturday, and the venue was like, “Oh, my god, I can’t believe how chilled out it was in there! There were just three people in there, two, three people, I can’t believe how relaxed it was!” The reason I can be like that actually is I have this guy at the front making everything perfect, and really you can behave how you want in the back if you have this guy running everything at the front.Toby: Yeah.Sheba: How it works is I have a few people who come and help me in the kitchen, either in prepping or on the day itself, I don’t try to keep two or three people that I’ve worked with regularly now, who are amazing, efficient, help me with creating focused playlists which really help me to get through everything, and I have him as front of house, and we have a team of about 10-15 waiters that we call on, bar staff, et cetera, and he’s kind of in charge of that and there are people now that we’ve worked with several, several times. So, it’s a really nice team, everyone knows how it works, and it’s…Toby: So, maximum people in the kitchen – how many?Sheba: Three.Toby: Really?Sheba: Yeah.Toby: Wow. So, how many max guests…?Sheba: 250.Toby: Wow. That’s skilful.Sheba: Well, it’s more, I think, for me, it’s a lot about the prep, so once the prep’s in we have – it’s quite an easy shove-it-together job.Toby: Right. So it’s all about the preparation.Sheba: Yeah, days of prep.Toby: So, how long from the beginning then, you’ve got 250 people having a three-course meal, bits and bobs…Sheba: It’s about two or three days of prep.Toby: Right, and what do you start with?Sheba: Vegetables.Toby: Right, why?Sheba: Well, it’s things like frying aubergines, which just takes a very long time, so… Or, it depends what it is, it could be desserts, could be that they’re having meringue, then I would try and work from there, because that’s another thing that’s quite time consuming, in terms of oven space.Toby: So, oven space, prep time, presumably perishable type things.Sheba: Exactly.Toby: So, the answer is it depends on what they’re having.Sheba: Yeah, it does. Sorry.Toby: Yeah, I’m just trying to work it out, because I’m crap at cooking. So, okay. And…so, let’s say, if you had some chicken to fillet or whatever, would you do that on the day? Or would you do all that stuff with meat, would you do that?Sheba: I’ve got an amazing butcher. I’ve got an amazing butcher, an amazing fish monger, and an amazing veg supplier. That’s been a really big thing that’s changed. There are two things that have really changed the whole process, which is my suppliers and my front of house. So, in terms of any kind of meat prep, they do all of it.Toby: Brilliant, so you just tell them exactly what you want, when you want to pick it up, and it happens?Sheba: Yeah, they’re amazing.Toby: And did that happen when you were doing private work? Like, as in in-house?Sheba: Yeah, the butchers actually started… I started using the butchers when I was working at the chambers because they’re in Hope, and I am now just in – I’m between Bobkin and Old Street. In fact, when we went to buy our house, one of the stipulations was that it had to be by the butcher’s. It had to be close enough to get to the butcher’s easily.Toby: So, who are they? What are they called?Sheba: They’re called McKanna Meats. And they supply a lot of restaurants, they really know what they’re doing. I’ve been using them now for six, seven years, and they really look after me, I can’t, like…there’s nothing, I don’t know what I would do without them.Toby: So you’re really dependent on strong supplier, good team of people.Sheba: Yeah, exactly. But I think that it’s all those things really are what make anything, is the team effort, everyone pulls together.Toby: Have you ever had a situation where you phone them up, and they say, “We’re at capacity and we can’t help you today”?Sheba: Uh…no.Toby: Wow. What happens if that happens?Sheba: I think the closest I’ve come to that was I called them up really, really late, and I was like, “I need 120 chicken thighs in about three hours,” and they’re like, “We’re low on thighs,” and so we used half thigh and half leg, it wasn’t difficult – it wasn’t too awful to get through.Toby: What about if your front of house guy can’t turn up – I mean, is he basically a full-time employee?Sheba: He’s amazing. If he can’t do it, I mean, he had something not too long ago, he had appendicitis, and during that time, I mean, the great thing about him is that he’s provided so many other amazing staff, that if he really is not able to do something – which I think he would always do his best either to be there or whatever, I think he really likes – it’s a really nice team environment to work in. Then, I would use someone else of that team.Toby: Right, so has he got his own company then?Sheba: No, he’s a freelancer, I guess, but he works for agencies, but he’s mine, in my head. He’s my guy.Toby: Right, okay. Do you think he gets most of his work from you, then?Sheba: I don’t know his percentage, I would say. He works for a lot of different people, I’m sure, but in my head, he’s 100% mine.Toby: He’s yours! So how many events a week at the moment are you doing – or a month, would you say you were doing?Sheba: At the moment we’re doing a number of events – I would say three or four events a week, at the moment.Toby: Wow.Sheba: It’s really busy. As soon as April hit it kind of got crazy. But, you know, it’s very up and down, so January might have one wedding or one big party, and the rest of it is little bits and pieces here and there, whereas as soon as the sun comes out really, you’re like, “I need a barbecue! I need…”Toby: Yeah. Have you ever had a situation where someone’s complained about food?Sheba: I’ve had a situation where they complained about the heat of the food.Toby: Right, as in, sort of spice heat?Sheba: No, as in temperature heat.Toby: Oh, right, okay.Sheba: Which was because they were running everything on a very tight budget and they didn’t want to hire more than one oven, and it rained on the day of their wedding, and the place we were cooking was about seven minutes’ walk from where it had to be served, so, unfortunately, it just wasn’t really feasible to keep everything boiling, piping hot on this cold day with quite a long walk.Toby: So how did you deal with that?Sheba: Well, I think everything was warm, it just wasn’t really, really hot. And how I dealt with it was to apologize, and to try – I mean, the whole day, I think, went really, really well for the best part of it, but it was more of a feedback thing than a complaint, I guess.Toby: So, would that mean that then you would, if you had that situation again, you just say it won’t be?Sheba: Yeah, I mean, that’s exactly it, so every event you do, every time afterwards we do a run-through, we talk about everything that could’ve been better and why or how it was needed to be improved, and I guess at the end of that, you’re like, “Alright, from now one, just as soon as someone says, ‘well, we’re doing it on a budget, we can’t hire this thing,’” we’ll say, “Well, you have to understand these are the results of that…”Toby: We’ve don’t that loads recently, we’re just sort of said, “If you want it done properly, you’re going to need to invest this amount, because otherwise it won’t be right, and you’d be wasting your money.”Sheba: But, I think that’s one of my general things I’ve learned as I’ve been doing it, is not to be afraid to say those things, because at the start you want to be, “Yeah! I can do anything! No, it’s not a problem! Don’t worry about it! Yeah, we’re going to budge it out!”Toby: Yeah, you’re happy to get the work, I suppose, aren’t you?Sheba: Yeah, and now as it’s getting busier and busier, it’s much easier to say, “Look, happy to do it, these are the problems…”Toby: Or to say, “No.”Sheba: Yeah, or to say no. I try not to say no, because I kind of want to do – the only time I’ve wanted to say no is when… I really like speaking to all of my clients because I get, you know, I want to know what they’re about, what they want, what they’re looking for from us. The only times that – I can think three occasions when I’ve been like, “It’s not going to work out,” is that they just won’t speak to me on the phone, they just want to do everything by email, and it’s kind of, officious, that becomes a problem for me. I mean, it’s fine if you’ve met a client and after they’re sending you emails about making it work, I don’t have a problem with that, I know who the client is. And if I haven’t had that one-on-one time, either on the phone, or in person, preferably, I don’t really know what the whole thing is about.Toby: So, that’s personal connection, isn’t it? And without that, you might not be cooking the kind of food that they love, and that’s why you want to meet them and speak to them, because you want to find out what’s best for them.Sheba: Exactly.Toby: Yeah, that is true. And it’s still a significant investment, isn’t it, of their money, and ultimately their time, and you don’t want to get anything wrong or embarrass them, or…Sheba: Well, yeah, every job – I mean, there’s a huge element of every job I do afterwards, it’s like a great – now, it used to be that I would get a real adrenaline rush that I was doing, you know…and then this weekend I was saying I did a big wedding, and followed the next day with a big party as well, and I used to be like, “Oh, my god, how are we going to get through it? Panic, panic!” And there’s this great adrenaline rush, and afterwards it was kind of, the part of the joy was the relief that we’d done it, and it went fine. That, as we’ve done more and more events, I don’t have that anymore, I kind of expect it to go well. But the feedback, for me, I need the positive feedback otherwise I don’t know what it’s for, so that’s really where I’m getting my job satisfaction, is knowing I’m doing a great job and that people are really enjoying what I’m doing.Toby: Sure. So, how many years has it been from walking out of the barrister’s to today-ish?Sheba: Five. So, it’s still quite little, I guess. Still quite young. Maybe it’s not. Is it not?Toby: Well, I think, when you’re past that two-year mark, that’s when you know you’re doing something right, from what I understand about the new businesses that – you know, if a business is going to not work, it’s going to not work in the first two years, and if you can get it past that, you can…Sheba: We’ve continued.Toby: So, you’re in five, so you’re all good. And you’ve diversified massively, and going on to different things. Let me look – I’ve got a squeaky chair… Um, so, someone said to you – obviously I know you just got into cakes – but if someone said to you, “What’s your real speciality?” Would you be able to say, “I’m going to cook – if you want me to blow your mind, this is what I cook for you.”Sheba: Yeah, well, a signature set of dishes.Toby: There you go! One word fits my fifty, as always.Sheba: Yes, I’ve kind of found my thing now, I guess, which is Middle Eastern food, and meringues, weirdly. My two big things, I do a lot of Middle Eastern food, it’s become incredibly trendy, thanks to Ottolenghi, and thanks to my name and hair colour, a lot of people are, you know, will happily come to me and be like, “Oh yeah, this is exactly the kind of food that we want.”Toby: So, what’s – give it to me. What is it?Sheba: So I do quite a lot of Persian rice, which I was brought up on.Toby: What does that mean?Sheba: It’s just a very long, laborious way of cooking rice, and it means that all of the grains are very separate and at the bottom of the pan they make it really nice and crispy, and there’s saffron in it, and berberis, and it’s very beautiful, fatty rice. It’s got a lot of butter in it.Toby: Spicy? Sweet?Sheba: You can put anything in it, but it’s more about the way in which you cook it, the fifteen times you wash it, you leave it to soak overnight so that all of the starch comes out of it. That’s a big one, doing a lot of that, and meringues – my grandmother taught me how to make meringues when I was about 14.I think we did a Claudia Rodin recipe, I think, together, and she was learning probably at the same time as me. But when I went to Leiths, they mark everything you do out of – I think it’s five, and they gave us a recipe, and I was like, “I know how to do this!” Five, straight away.Toby: So, did everyone learn…Sheba: From me. Yeah, exactly, I ran that class.Toby: So, what else? I’ve got rice and meringues, what else do I need to sustain myself for a day?Sheba: I do a lot of lamb, slow-cooked and otherwise, a lot of aubergines run my life – I spend a lot of time with aubergines, they’re usually bought by the box of about 15 aubergines a go. This wedding that I just did actually, they had a smoked aubergine dip, which is a Persian recipe, which I make a lot, and it’s delicious – but then also I had, it was aubergine with quinoa, and pomegranate molasses, and pomegranate and pine nuts.Toby: What’s quinoa?Sheba: Quinoa is a Peruvian grain.Toby: Of course it is.Sheba: Which is very trendy now.Toby: Okay.Sheba: So I guess that’s kind of a melange of cultural things, but it just works very well to ball count the aubergine thing. But, I think I must have fried, it was 150 people, I think I fried, not including the dip, about 65-70 aubergines for this one thing. You’re like, slicing everything as thin as possible, it’s just days – it felt like days of my life, just frying aubergines.Toby: Oh, going on the amount for…Sheba: Yeah, exactly. And obviously when you cook them, as well, they shrink, it’s a very upsetting process.Toby: Do good ones shrink less?Sheba: No, I think it’s more just – well, a lot of people salt them, and stuff, I don’t tend to do that, they just absorb a lot of oil, and as they cook the absorption of oil makes them change consistency from solid to…what’s the word? I can’t think of the word.Toby: Don’t know…flexible?Sheba: Flexible.Toby: You’re the chef! I don’t know. And you want to do events, so you said supper club. So what’s the supper club to you? What is that?Sheba: Well, I’m going to start running them from my flat, I think probably next month, and that will be doing all this Middle Eastern food to start with, and then eventually I’ve got a few friends who do quite successful blogs, and they’re going to come and do a couple things. It’s going to be just in my flat, 15 people maximum, so quite an intimate event.Toby: Do you have a big table?Sheba: I do have two big tables.Toby: Great.Sheba: So hopefully it’ll be comfortable 15, not like a, everyone – I’ve got a big living room, dining room, so that’s nice, much bigger than the kitchen. So that will be a nice comfy thing, and nice to be able to kind of create events, because at the moment I do a lot of events for people, so it’ll be nice to run my own events.Toby: Yeah. And then what’s the next stage? If, suddenly 100 people say, “I need to be at your supper club,” you’re going to have to get a venue, right?Sheba: Yeah. Well, that – what’s nice about that, is that the events that I’m doing now, the weddings and stuff, is that every time I do one so far the venue’s wanted to take our details and put us down as one of their recommended caterers. So, should I want to do an event for 100 people, my hope is that they would be happy for us to come back and do something there.Toby: So, do you like the idea of, rather than having your own kitchen in one place, do you like the idea of that, kind of traveling about thing, and using different venues?Sheba: Yeah, I do. I like doing all the prep in my kitchen, because I know, I’ve designed it so it works for me. It’s very small, but I know how to work it, and as I’ve said the prep is the most important part, so I’m happy to turn up anywhere having done all the prep and find out what I’m going to be faced with.Toby: Any aspiration to have a restaurant?Sheba: No, none. It’s a very different game, I think, restauranting and catering.Toby: Yeah, you have to open the doors and hope that people are going to walk through.Sheba: Yeah, there’s that, and also just the service time, because obviously every time I’m doing something I’m serving everyone en masse at the same time, whereas people are coming in, going, and I’ve worked in a couple of restaurants and I don’t know, I don’t understand how it works. I mean, I’ve seen it, it obviously does work.Toby: Right, and so you need more people in a restaurant kitchen. Yeah, of course. It’s suddenly dawning on me why that works, and why it’s easier, when everyone’s eating at the same time.Sheba: Yeah, for me it is. Well, I mean, I think different people think different things. I was speaking to someone who runs quite a successful restaurant and he said he’d done some weddings, and he said, “I don’t understand how you do it… It’s carnage.” But, you know, it’s just what you know. I know how to run those things, I’ve learned.Toby: So, would it be fair to say that you like the atmosphere of everyone eating together as well, is that sort of a thing that you like, do you like, from the very beginning, you like – you don’t just like making food, you like the occasion that food brings people together, so you enjoy cooking for everyone that’s kind of the part of same social event rather than separate groups of people in a restaurant.Sheba: Yeah, I think that’s actually – I hadn’t really thought of that, but that is true. And a lot of the food that we do is sharing plates, so it’s part of exactly that, it’s this very communal, everyone’s together, people who don’t know each other are forced to speak to each other whether they want to or not.Toby: So it’s a social thing.Sheba: And hopefully very relaxed. That’s what I want to always create is a relaxed, happy, sociable atmosphere.Toby: And is that a trend… I mean, I went to a place called The Supper Club in Amsterdam years ago, and that was very much like you didn’t know what you were going to get, and there was probably about 100 people there, and it was couples and groups of friends, but apart from what you were allergic to, you didn’t know anything, and you got a five-course meal, and you hung out, and because everyone was eating together there was bit of…and the way they set the room out, as well, it was kind of like massive beds all the way around, and everyone was kind of enjoying their food together. So, there was a bit of, you know, it wasn’t like a massive party, but there was a bit of communication between us all, because we were all kind of enjoying the food rather than keeping ourselves to ourselves.Sheba: Exactly. Yeah, well that’s exactly – and that, with the supper club, is hopefully what I’ll continue to create, and it be a nice and easy because it’s in my house, so I know how to arrange the room, and it’s a quite friendly environment.Toby: Okay, and so I suppose that’s what’s next. And really briefly, before we finish, you’ve just been in New York.Sheba: Yep.Toby: So, how’d you do that? How’d you prep food for somewhere that’s seven hours in an airplane away?Sheba: Well, I had to prep it when I got there. I couldn’t chop the aubergines here.Toby: So, you had to find a kitchen?Sheba: Yeah, actually it was an airbnb, it was, I think, one of the greatest challenges of my career.Toby: So you booked airbnb, which is a website where…Sheba: …just book, it was a flat.Toby: …someone’s house, basically, or someone’s flat. You go on, you just say, “Hi, I’ve got a job in your town, I’m going to need to use your kitchen probably more than your average guest.”Sheba: No, actually, I didn’t book it, the couple booked it, and they didn’t inform…the landlord, of that flat. Which added extra, I don’t know what the word is, uh, challenges, to the event. But, we got there, and the fridge was smaller than me, and I’m 5-foot-2, so quite small. I kind of thought, everything’s going to be massive…Toby: Ha, and you found the only small fridge in America.Sheba: The fridge was tiny, and the oven, it was just one oven, it was four hobs on top, and I got there, and I didn’t understand how to switch it on. It was a gas oven that didn’t work the way I’d ever seen a gas oven work before. And I was like, “I don’t think the oven works,” and she called the landlord, and he was like, “No, well, I don’t know if works, I’ve never used it before.” It’s kind of, ahhhhh. We had to hide all the food because we weren’t supposed to be catering a wedding in there. It was a really tiny flat, so it was…a challenge, but it was one of those things that we got there, and I was like, “I don’t know where any of the grocery stores are.” I know that I need these specialist ingredients, probably I’m going to find them.Toby: What was the event?Sheba: It was a wedding. It was 120 guests, and it was interesting in lots of ways. One of the ways was that the food trends there are very different to here, for example, they really wanted Brussels sprouts on the menu.Toby: Hmm.Sheba: Yeah, which was very successful, but surprising. And actually, Brussels sprouts were on everything in New York, including on pasta, where you get shavings of Brussels sprouts, so we’re behind the times here.Toby: Right.Sheba: Yeah, so they had one of these big Middle Eastern menu and they wanted a pavlova tower, and we had to do when we found out the oven worked. Pavlovas usually take about an hour and a half, two hours, depending on the size of them. Because of how slow it took about six to seven of them, and they needed about six or seven of them, and it was just…it was amazingly hard. But, we did it! It was one of those things where you do it, and it was like, “Oh, my god, we’ve achieved it!”Toby: And how many people…did you just go on your own and find other people? Or you took…Sheba: I took someone who assists me a lot with me so it was just the two of us doing all the prep and the cooking on the day.Toby: And all the front of house and waiter?Sheba: They were hired from some kind of agency.Toby: And you had to brief them before, and…?Sheba: Yeah.Toby: So how long were you there? You were there a few days before?Sheba: Yeah, I was there three days…four days…three or four days before, but I came actually – it was also my really stupid fault, but I’d just gone around Vietnam for two or three weeks, just learning some food there. And I came from there, came back here, and went straight to New York, so the jet lag was also phenomenal when I arrived. But I think, yeah, I think we did the shopping three days before, and the cooking for two days, and happily the fridge was tiny, but it was freezing in New York, and we just bought these massive storage boxes and all the food that we needed to cool down we would put in these metal trays and then cling film them to death, and – you just have to find ways around everything, so then it would go outside in the freezing cold wrapped up in loads of cling film in one of these storage boxes, which was also wrapped up, so that everything could cool down in the ice.Toby: What would you do differently if you were to do that again?Sheba: I would make sure that I book the airbnb.Toby: Yeah! And what did they like best? What was the result of that event?Sheba: The result of the event was, I think, the food went down amazingly well. Everyone was really pleased, every person I met afterwards was like, “I’ve never had any food like this.” I guess, also we’re looking at, I don’t know the food trends in New York apart from Brussel sprouts.Toby: Bagels.Sheba: Bagels? I didn’t have a single bagel while I was there. Devastating. Yeah, I don’t really know the food trends, so it was kind of interesting bringing what is quite trendy here now, this Middle Eastern feast style here, and seeing the reaction, but the reaction was very positive, and that was very kind of rewarding.Toby: So are you going to go back?Sheba: To New York? To cater?Toby: Any inquiries?Sheba: No, but I think it was quite a friendly event. I would like to go back and not cater, actually, because it was my first ever time there, I didn’t really get to see anything aside from the inside of this airbnb.Toby: Okay, so where can people find you? What’s your website?Sheba: My website is www.localsauce.co.uk.Toby: Brilliant. And Twitter? Have you got all that going on?Sheba: Yeah, localsauce, Twitter, it’s the same thing, and Instagram is localsaucefood, and Facebook is LocalSauce.Toby: Brilliant. What have I missed?Sheba: Nothing, you’ve got it all. I think we’ve done all of it.Toby: Alright. I’m going to by a McDonald’s and a Malibu now.Sheba: I love McDonald’s!Toby: Brilliant! Alright, see ya later!Sheba: Bye!Narrator: You’re listening to plannerspod.com.Toby: Okay, James, that was my chat with Sheba. How did you feel about it?James: Yeah, I loved it. Anyone who knows me, knows I’m a bit of a closet Master Chef fan, so watching any top chefs working in the kitchen is always a bit of a thrill to me. But, one of the points that I really resonating with me, was when she was working as a chef in a very wealthy household in London, I found it fascinating, it reminded me when we were talking to one of our events guys about how to motivate a team when you’ve got very wealthy people working together, and also guys working on an hourly rate. Do you remember that conversation, Toby?Toby: Yeah, it’s funny, isn’t it? Certain people, the whole event business, there’s a lot of subtracting, and I think one of the things that can easily be forgotten is the different types of personalities that need to work together and, yeah, it’s funny that actually some people who are used to working on an hourly rate can be somewhat uncomfortable with the amount of wealth that is surrounding them sometimes, you know, and it’s our job as our event professionals to make them feel comfortable and feel at ease so that they can deliver their best possible performance.James: Yeah, the next one was just having an understanding of how Sheba works, that I had no idea that she would say, do prep for 250 people in her own kitchen. I’m looking forward to seeing you doing lemon chicken in your kitchen soon, Toby. So, it’s incredible to watch how enterprising she is in that respect. How do you watch that? How do you feel about that, Toby?Toby: Well, I feel like you’ve fluffed your only opportunity to have a go at me there, which I quite enjoyed. Um, yeah, my main thing was, yeah, just unbelievable amounts of prep, which I think we covered in the conversation that I had with her, so yeah, check out the prep, especially for caterers. I thought we had it bad, but obviously when you’ve got ingredients that are only good for a certain amount of days, you really have to be on the case with it, so she’s obviously mega at planning and organising, which is why she’s on this podcast. What else?James: And, I guess what else, is when she was talking about the oven, and the client would only pay for one oven, and the food actually got there a little bit lukewarm. I think the moral of the story is if you end up with a client like that, is don’t be afraid to say, “Look, no, sorry I don’t think we’re a good fit.” Because, don’t you think, Toby, would you agree with me, that it’s just so important that you keep your standards up as a supplier, so you’re only delivering the very, very best?Toby: Yeah, I would agree with that completely, James. And I think we’ve learned the hard way, certainly in the past, there’s absolutely no way that if you’ve got something that works, and you know you need a certain amount of investment, i.e. in this case, you know, a bit more money for an extra oven, it needs to happen, otherwise it’s simply not worth risking the event and risking your reputation as well, so yeah, very well picked up, and certainly something that we totally agree with as a business.James: And just one last point, I love the way she’s slowly developing her USP, her Unique Selling Point, on her kind of Middle Eastern heritage, developing the Persian dishes, I think that’s really, really fascinating, and I’m looking forward to sending you out to Waitrose now to buy some quinoa, Toby.Toby: Excellent! Okay. Lovely, Waitrose is obviously a very nice shop. Okay, so, I think that’s it. I’m looking for to eating some nice food at some point, cooked by her, hopefully. And if anyone wants to book Sheba for an event, or even find out more about her fridge-filling service, which sounds unbelievable, where can she be found, James?James: You can find her at www.localsauce.co.uk.Toby: That’s it! Okay, and everyone can find out more about us on Facebook.com/metropolislive, on Twitter, /metropolislive1, and this podcast is directly available via iTunes and Stitcher, just search for The Planner’s Planner on either your Apple device or your Android device. You can find accompanying notes, new media, and links from this podcast and, of course, more about us, on our website, which is www.plannerspod.com. Thank you very much for listening, and we’ll see you next time. Cheers, James.James: Yep, see you in the kitchen, Toby!Toby: Bye!Narrator: You’re listening to The Planner’s Planner Podcast with Toby Goodman and James Eager. Visit plannerspod.com.
Show Notes
00:38 – Opening words with Toby & James02:42 – Interview with Sheba03:30 – Find out what happened when Sheba went to Music College04:35 – Discover where Sheba retrained to become a professional chef06:40 – The main skills that Sheba has taken from doing her diploma07:55 – Find out the first professional job Sheba had in catering08:20 – The skill around precision timing.09:25 – How Sheba transitioned into private work.10:30 – Sheba shares some thoughts on working in wealthy environments.11:30 – Find out where Sheba has worked.12:05 – Sheba talks about the differences between new and old money (sort of).12:50 – Find out how Sheba positioned herself to get into the private sector.13:50 – Discover where Sheba gets her work now.14:17 – Find out how Local Sauce started.15:18 – Find out the inspiration behind Sheba’s baking obsession.16:00 – The power of a picture of a cake.16:33 – Find out what band Sheba made a cake for recently.17:20 – Sheba discusses the value of a strong front of house manager.18:20 – How Sheba staffs her company.19:05 – How many people Sheba needs in the kitchen to cater a 250-guest event.19:25 – How many days it takes to prepare for catering for 250 people.19:45 – What Sheba will start with in her preparation process.20:40 – Sheba discusses her love for great suppliers.22:30 – Find out what happens if things don’t go to plan.23:45 – Find out how many events Sheba caters for.24:35 – What happened when people gave negative feedback and why.25:25 – How Sheba will make sure she learns from every event.26:50 – How and why Sheba likes to communicate with her clients.29:10 – How long Sheba has been working on Local Sauce.30:00 – Warning! Mouth watering content: Find out Sheba’s signature dishes.34:25 – Discover how Sheba is planning her move into Supper Clubs.35:55 – Why Sheba’s own kitchen is so important to her.36:20 – Find out why Sheba doesn’t like the idea of running a restaurant.37:55 – The social side of food.39:50 – An amazing story of how Sheba planned an event in New York where she prepared and cooked everything in an ‘Air B & B’ for 120 guests!45:50 – Find out where you can contact Sheba.46:25 – Closing comments with Toby & James.