Catering to you: Custom menus

Michael Everts offers food catering that many others do not - fresh produce from his own gardens and carefully selected animals from regional farmers who meet his standards in raising them.
"That's where my heart is," said Everts, chef and owner/operator of Real Foods Catering and Blackbird Gardens in Petoskey. "It's a celebration of their marriage, why not have the best possible food for friends and family?"
Everts considers himself in rare company, noting there are not many caterers offering what he does when it comes to preparing truly customized dishes for wedding celebrations and other events.
The fresh produce he serves comes from both his 3-acre intensive-grow salad and specialty greens garden and local farmsteads. Beef, chicken and lamb are sourced from Charlevoix County and Engadine in the Upper Peninsula, and fish is fresh from the Great Lakes.
"Each wedding is a custom project," said Everts. "I truly provide an alternative in terms of the food."
As a full-service caterer, he can handle groups up to about 250 people. He's passionate about his cause - using quality ingredients that are grown locally. Mass-produced food, he added, is often nutrient-deficient and redundant.
"By eating locally we reduce our dependence on oil and bloodshed," he said.
He's working to change that, one party at a time. At a recent 90th birthday celebration in Petoskey, the menu included veggie, tofu and shrimp egg rolls, a Blackbird Gardens salad (eight different baby salad greens) and sesame ginger vinaigrette, Cornish game hens from Aspen Hill Farms in Boyne City and almond bean curd with fresh seasonal fruit for dessert.
At another event, the appetizer menu included fresh fruit and vegetable platters, chicken and beef kabobs, heirloom tomatoes with fresh mozzarella and smoked salmon.
He is often asked to cater high-end affairs and enjoys the ability to create dishes such as wilted escarole salad with watermelon radish or braised rabbit with wild mushroom polenta.. Garlic shrimp, finger burgers, chicken kabobs off the grill and bruschetta are other specialties.
"The biggest thing I offer is the ability to totally customize their wedding," Everts said. His prices range from about $25 to $50 a person.

Dave Phillips, master chef and owner of Creative Culinary Catering in Charlevoix, is a Culinary Institute of America graduate who is known throughout the area from his years as owner of Grey Gables.
Others may know Phillips as the maker of the world's largest cherry pie, created at the Charlevoix Airport in 1976 and in the Guinness Book of World Records yet today.
Going big is Phillips' style, based on what the bride and groom desire.
"A lot of people will tell you what you like and how you should eat it," he said. "In my interview with the couple, the first thing I ask them is, what are some of the things that you like? Then I have the skill and ability to be able to cook Mexican, German, French - whatever cuisine they are seeking."
Phillips said he sticks to a couple rules of thumb: That most people don't like things too spicy, too sweet or too salty, so he takes the middle path with creative menu choices.
This summer, he's planning a pasta bar with various topping stations - seafood, vegetables, meat - and sauces including alfredo, red and meat. "A lot of people today are vegetarians and your caterer has got to work in a sauce that is vegetarian and can be topped with vegetables," Phillips said.
The presentation is also important. "You want from the very beginning, the smell, the taste, the look, to be perfect," he said.
Grilling is a popular option that plays into the senses, particularly in the summertime. Kabobs are his specialty and he enjoys grilling fresh seafood, chicken and beef kabobs that include the usual vegetable trio plus potatoes and corn coblettes.  
"The presentation off the grill, the smell and everything ... people think they're with the Iron Chef," he said. "They're getting it fresh."
With 40 years experience cooking everywhere from Cub Scout camp-outs to elegant events, Phillips said he can prepare delicious fare for any sized group - and in any conditions.
He recalled one lakeshore wedding when the winds were gusting "what felt like 200 miles per hour." While the guests huddled in the tent, he braved the elements at the grill, as planned, using other cooking supplies - pots, pans, everything - to block the wind.
"I can do this anywhere," he said. "Not everybody can cook that way. Those are things a good, experienced caterer needs to have under his belt."

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