Tag Portlandia

Parties That Cook Reflects on the Top 12 Accomplishments of 2012

We managed to survive the madness of the holidays, only to find ourselves waist-deep in January events! Just as we did last year, we’re about to dive into Parties That Cook’s Top Accomplishments of 2012.

1.  Broke our Own Records. In 2012, we hosted our largest event to-date (can you even picture 213 guests?!) and later booked our largest event to-date. This January, we’ll be sure to welcome all 275 guest with open arms!

2.  Launched New Events. 2012 brought the almost accidental development of Cooking with Kindness, a corporate event where groups come together in the kitchen of a local family shelter to cook for, serve, and dine alongside its residents.

3.  Became a Certified Women-Owned Business. That’s right. Not only is PTC founder and CEO, Bibby Giginilliat, a woman (surprise!), she also passed the rigorous application process and proved herself as visionary of the company.

4.  Hosted another Successful Women’s Initiative Fundraiser. We are on a roll, folks! Cooking up Success for Women’s Initiative has surely taken off. Raising $17,500 is nothing to be ashamed of!

5.  Celebrated Birthdays and Birth Days. Not only did we host awesome birthday celebrations (per usual), but we also welcomed 2 new little guys to the PTC family! HUGE congratulations to Erin and Rosie!

6.  Grew like Crazy in Multiple Markets. Talk about a growth spurt! When 68% growth (Chicago) isn’t the biggest change you’ve seen, you know you’re doing something right. Hello, 675% growth in Portland!!

7.  Cooked up Romance. We’ve conquered Date Night proposals in 2011, so we thought we’d challenge ourselves with Singles. Who better to partner with, running approx. 30 events in 3 cities, than Match.com?

8.  Won Awards and Made Headlines. We were awarded #63 on the list of Fastest Growing Small Businesses by the San Francisco Business Times and earned a spot on the Inc. 500|5000 List of America’s Fastest Growing Private Companies for the first time! Man, it feels good to be a baller. We’re proud to say we were featured in Crain’s Chicago Business for the first time. See it for yourself here.

9.  Worked on Cohesion within Our Team. A series of workshops with facilitator, Abby, raised our corporate and personal consciousness. Things have never been smoother.

10.  Positioned PTC to Make BIG Moves in 2013. Remember how we moved Carolyn to Portlandia to manage the NW territory? Talk about a good move! We also hired some amazing new office talent, AND managed to let go of bulk. We have officially embraced our new mantra: less is more.

Parties That Cook’s Party Crew Brings Portlandia to San Francisco

Last weekend, the Parties That Cook party crew took over Bibby’s house. With her permission, of course (we’re not pirates!). We came together to say goodbye – for now – to our wonderful Operations Manger, Carolyn. She’s moving on to bigger and better things as Parties That Cook’s new Manager of both our Seattle and PORTLAND outposts! Congratulations, Carolyn!

A couple of office folk spent the day decorating according to the hilariously fitting theme: Portlandia! If you haven’t had the privilege of checking out the hilariousness that is this TV show, I recommend you do so now…

OK, now that we’ve got that sorted out, let’s continue. Bibby’s dining room was decked out in such theme-appropriate garnishes as BIRDS. There were birds on the chandelier, birds on the wall, and even birds on the cupcakes! The sign to the left says it all… There was also a dedicated shell art station giving guests the opportunity to take a moment and glue a few shells or some sand on a picture frame for Carolyn! (She’s gotta be up on current trends..)

For dinner, we ordered some absolutely delicious pizzas from Little Star Pizza (we had to give Carolyn a little taste of San Francisco while she’s still here!). Bibby made yummy (and popular) kale salad. Rosie made addictively good cupcakes and brownies for everyone to scarf up. Leave it to our witty Queen of Rules, Regulations, and Laws, Beth, to come up with the PERFECT menu placards.

Adabelle, whose name means Joyous and Beautiful, was raised with her sisters Daisymae and Maisysue on a beautiful farm, where them romped along 4 acres of rolling green hills and jumped in lots of puddles. Her diet consisted of a veritable smorgasbord-orgasbord-orgasbord of organic table scraps hand fed to her by Harold and Mildred Tucker, of Beaverton, OR.

Colin, whose name means The Victory of The People, was raised by the loving Reese family of Lake Oswego on a diet of sheep’s milk, soy and hazelnuts. Traumatized as a young chick when wee Benjamin chased him around the coop, the Reese’s took Colin into their home as a juvenile, where he spent the rest of his days coddled even more lovingly than his eggs.

Armed with this rare inside look into the lives of the animals who so graciously gave their lives for this meal, we were much better prepared to make an informed decision about which pizza to eat. Thanks, Beth!

Guests arrived ready to party — dressed as one of the many Portlandia characters! I have to say, there was a plethora of plaid and flannel ensembles and beanie-like hats. After an impromptu costume contest, we declared two winners: Chef Scott (with his bright blue goatee and facial piercings) and Bibby (with her entire flannel outfit, socks and sandals, and nose ring). Gina created a master playlist of 90s music that kept the party going until it was time to move on to karaoke.

Despite the very incriminating video-graphic evidence we have of Carolyn during this last portion of the evening, I will just say that karaoke was extremely entertaining and fun for all who showed up! Carolyn, though we are missing you already, we wish you the best in Portland! I know you’ll be great up there, and will make us all very proud.

Now come back.