Idea Book: The Wild Thyme Company, ACE 2018 Finalist

The Achievement in Catering & Events (ACE) awards honor those who have worked tirelessly to keep their clients thrilled and their companies on the cutting edge. Each year, caterers and event planners from around the globe submit their best work from the past year in hopes of being recognized as the best in the industry. Catersource’s annual awards show, also including the ICA CATIE awards, took place in Las Vegas at Caesars Palace on February 19, 2018.

Each company submitted two events for ACE consideration. Here is a look at the two events that elevated The Wild Thyme Company in the category of finalist, over $2 million in revenue.

ONE: San Diego Comicon 2017 - Preview Events

Xfinity wanted to serve pop-culture inspired meals at San Diego's Comic-Con 2017, in a pop-up diner paying homage to Game of Thrones, Orange Is the New Black, and Marvel's Luke Cage.

Comic-con attendees would receive “TV Dinners” inspired by the shows, featuring dishes like Genghis Connie's chow mein from Luke Cage, the Jolly Rancher weapon that Piper used to frame fellow inmate Stella Carlin in OITB and Jerky of the Beast, inspired by the wild boar that ultimately killed GoT character King Robert Baratheon.

“This sounded like an absolute blast!” said Keith Lord, The Wild Thyme Company’s Director of Culinary & Operations.

“We received an artist’s rendering of three plates our client wanted to duplicate, exactly. Our sales team was ready to contract, saying, ‘c’mon, it’s just a wolf cookie and a candy shank.’ At least we were in agreement that the rest of what the client wanted was a breeze (ha!).”

The shank. We found a still photo from OITNB, then a YouTube video of how to make a shank, Lord said. “Timed it doing 10 shanks, unwrap the candy, fuse three pieces together with a blow torch, form the tip (3 sugar burns, not bad). Calculated nine days to produce the order. We calculated the costs of product, labor and air conditioning and awaited a signed contract. Then [we] ordered so many Jolly Ranchers that Amex froze our credit card.”

The cookie. We needed a cutter and a mold, said Lord. “We weren’t really comfortable committing until we had a viable source for the mold. The client found a manufacturer in New York and they shipped overnight. The molds were not deep enough. We had to pry each cookie from the molds by hand and clean them before the next use. We then needed to hand paint ‘blood’ around the edges of each cookie, so a new team came into the strategy room alongside team shank.”

“Naturally we had a very busy week with events otherwise, including another Comicon event for Blade Runner 2049 (which among other items had a physical ton of udon noodles to cook), said Lord.

The week of Comicon events brought TWTC closer together, which alone made it worth all the hurdles. “For nine days, our cooks melted Jolly Rancher shanks with butane torches and forming the hot sugar with their hands to shape the shanks, joined later by a team of wolf blood cookie painters.

Our completed plates looked just as the artist renderings, exactly. The clients were blown away.”

The Comicon "shank shop" at TWTC

Luke Cage & Game of Thrones final plates

Wolf cookie cutter & rendering

TWO: Andrea & Cory Wedding Weekend

“We had a very typical wedding tasting with a very nice couple,” said Keith Lord, Director of Culinary & Operations, The Wild Thyme Company. “When the salesperson asked about their rehearsal dinner, the groom said since he was from Oahu, and a lot of people would be coming from Hawaii, they wanted Hawaiian BBQ for everyone the night before.”

Coincidentally, a new concept “Island Thyme” had just been finalized just that morning, so sales was able to show the client hot-off-the-press menu possibilities. They were impressed. Their favorites discussed, a rehearsal menu was planned, and a second tasting for a rehearsal dinner on the books.  

Based on that tasting, the couple then added a bridal brunch to be held in the bridal suite the morning of the wedding, and a brunch the day after the wedding!

The only issue was the poi. “During the tasting we had made poi, which no one really likes, or eats, except for our groom. He was obsessive about it,” said Lord.

“Knowing that this could be a potential deal breaker for the rehearsal dinner portion of the event, we did some homework. We reached out locally to the Hawaiian chef circle in town. Worked our way in to find the elder chef, and asked how we could make perfect Hawaiian poi.

“His answer: you can’t. The taro root on the mainland is not the same, and you cannot get the Hawaiian taro root here.”

So what do you do?

“You buy it from Hawaii, frozen, ready to heat, it’s expensive, it takes a long time to get here, and its perfect,” said Lord.

“We found a bag at a local Japanese store that carries some Hawaiian product, and used that for the second tasting. At the first bite the groom signed the contract.”

Success! “However,” said Lord, “we did have the get it from Hawaii in two-pound bags, lots of them it was expensive, and it did arrive just a couple days before the event. People ate it with granulated sugar on the side (?!?).”

Laulau bites

Spam misubi

Wedding desserts

Longanisa gyoza

Chef Keith Lord (left) and The Wild Thyme Company owner, Dawn Carvajal

Click here for information about Catersource and the Art of Catering Food 2019.