Tag team building portland

Parties That Cook Reflects on a Great Inaugural Portland Event

0 comments By The Kitchen Whisperer Filed in Entertaining, General, News & Events Tagged with , , , July 6th, 2011 @ 5:29 pm

Parties That Cook is all about making event dreams come true. In our 12 years of business, we have accommodated some pretty off-the-wall requests. (We even created a new event, per request!) So when we got a call from a PwC event planner asking if we could host a corporate team building event in Portland, OR, we were up for the challenge!

To be fair, the rumors of an impending Parties That Cook launch in Portland later this summer are in fact true, so this request felt like a wonderful affirmation, albeit a challenge to pull off! Carolyn, PTC’s Operations Manager and amazing Lead Chef, offered to lead the event with the help of Crissy, our Vice President of Sales and Marketing and a wonderful chef, as well! Luckily, our completely mobile kitchen concept allowed us to transport everything we needed from San Francisco to Portland, including 30 brand new chefs knives. The venue, KitchenCru, is a gorgeous new commercial kitchen space in the heart of downtown Portland and they provided the bulk of the cookware. With this team and a great new venue, we were set up for a successful event!

The PwC group elected to host a Small Plates event with a competitive twist — and it was an intense competition! (All in good fun, of course…) Teams worked together on different small plates recipes and a group of 6 managers and partners from PwC were the judges. During the cooking, judges walked around the stations to observe participants interacting with each other. At the end, the judges conducted a great follow-up session, asking everyone how their experience working together tied into the PwC company values they’d been learning about during their week of recruit activities.



The judges, who had experienced a Parties That Cook event in Seattle in the past, thought this was one of the most creative groups they’d seen! They loved the presentation of the Fried Vegetable Samosas with Indian Green Chutney and that the Little Fish Tacos with Tomato Salad and Chipotle-Lime Crema team garnished their platter with the letters PWC made from cilantro stems.



In the end, however, the winning team was the Ground Sirloin Sliders with Smoky Cheddar Cheese. They worked well together, went above and beyond the call of duty with grilled buns, and created a great presentation.


We are thrilled that our first Portland team building event was such a hit, and surely hope that it’s a sign of good things to come! Now stay tuned for that “official” launch…

Parties That Cook Set to Heat Up Portland Team Building Events

0 comments By The Kitchen Whisperer Filed in General, News & Events Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , June 2nd, 2011 @ 12:52 pm

As Parties That Cook ramps up to launch our hands-on cooking parties and corporate team building events in Portland, Oregon this summer, learning about the city’s culture is an important step. What better way to do so than by eating our way through the city?!

On two recent trips to research this progressive, food-loving city, Bibby and Carolyn quickly learned first-hand that Portland is leading the country in food carts (it boasts one of the largest populations of food carts per capita in the U.S.), farm-to-table dining, and innovative chefs satisfying Portland’s hunger for delicious food made with local ingredients!

While Bibby and Carolyn spent most of their time meeting with clients, visiting venues, and picking the brains (and bellies!) of Portland foodies, they were still able to see what the all the buzz is about. Everyone they met with had a tip for them, and the list grew like yeast in a microbrewery!  Some wonderful restaurants they would gladly return to include:

– Clyde Common (at The Ace Hotel) for fresh Arugula Pappardelle and the most “alive” salad they had ever seen
– Gruner for contemporary Austrian fare
– Little Bird Bistro for bar bites and cocktails
– Tasty n Sons for their Chocolate Potato Doughnuts with Crème Anglaise
– Beaker and Flask for spit-roasted whole goat. Every Tuesday night they spit-roast a different animal!

Lunch was more spontaneous – easy to do with food carts sprinkled on every corner and parking lot! The Grilled Cheese Grill was one of their favorites. You can choose to eat on an outdoor patio or inside the old-school school bus with bench seating and tables shellacked with 70’s yearbook pictures. Carolyn had the Meatball Grilled Cheese with Marina Sauce and Pesto – delicious! Bibby went for the Beef and Gruyere on Rye, which was equally amazing.

The rental car reminded them of their eating experiences when they returned to PDX: empty coffee cups from Stumptown Coffee, balled up Porchetta and Arugula sandwich wrappers from The People’s Pig food cart, and pastry aromas from treats at Ken’s Artisan Bakery wafted out as they sadly retrieved their belongings.

The next trip will definitely include a Farm to Table experience, a trip to the Portland Farmer’s Market, lunch at Pok Pok for Vietnamese, and dinner at Castagna… Parties That Cook’s official Portland launch is in September, but the first Portland event is on June 27, 2011 – 3 months ahead of schedule! City of Roses, here comes Parties That Cook!