THE ONLY MAN FROM SYRACUSE WHO I MISS WAS NOT SO NICE
Howard Benjamin: Owner of Tiffany's Catering Company, specializing in pig roasts and more..
http://www.tiffanyscatering.com/
I left Syracuse in 2005 and then returned in 2006 to try to save an old marriage that was dying a slow, painful death. I responded to an ad for a catering job located right around the corner from my little love nest and Howard Benjamin hired me on the spot as head of sales. "I just want a job in the kitchen. Prepping would be fine," I said. There was too much personal stuff going on in my life and I just needed to lose myself in food all day and make some money. But Howard looked at my resume and decided something else for me.
My office was what used to be a meat locker of a former grocery store. I had a phone book, a phone, and regular mail to work with. My computer was an old PC, the printer was noisy and shook a lot. I made many connections but not a lot of bookings. Howard threw me leads but they never amounted to much.
He was very fat and spoke slowly, with a lisp. But he was full of energy. Howard threw the biggest fits and scared the hell out of all his workers; sometimes right on location in the middle of a job - like a wedding with 200 guests. When he yelled he was so loud and rude that everyone feared him.
I was nervous around him at first, but that all went away by 2008. He trusted me by then to chef and manage small parties with my own crew. I did three or four pig roasts and a fancy political fundraiser. I was comfortable around him all the time, despite his fits, and joked with him in his office.
He was a funny man. Howard was hilarious sometimes. He told me that I reminded him of Lionel Richie. We joked about a girl that told him he looked like Jaba the Hut. And he did!
The man could be such a crowd pleaser sometimes. He really was a great party planner. He was the type of salesman who told you what you wanted - not to take advantage of you, but to take care of you. I trusted him, and that summer of 2008 he really trusted me too. He told me that I was really good at that job, and looked at me with a sincerity I can never forget.
I even had his back when it came down to his workers slacking too much or talking trash about him. And Howard was very much a prick to his men, but I still took his side. Labor cost, food cost, doing things his way was important to me.
Once he asked me to get him a hot philly steak sandwich from Subway, with mushrooms. Well they didn't have any mushrooms and I remember getting so upset because I wanted him to eat a good lunch. Another time I remember we cooked six or eight pork butts for a big job the next day. They cooked for hours in our ovens and created an aroma that surrounded you like air and made you breathe flavor. I think there were four large ovens and over a dozen burners. When the pork was done and sitting out to cool, he picked at some of it and told me "there's nothing like that." There's nothing like that pork hot and juicy right out of the oven. He let one of the female hands take some home to her family. Sometimes he was so generous. But it didn't matter because people stole from him all the time anyway.
His office was light blue and small. He would roll around in an office chair back and forth from his computer desk to his paperwork desk. Howard never gave cash advances, even on days already worked when I was hard for cash and couldn't wait for the check. We all got paid after three o'clock on Mondays. If I ever asked for a front he would say something prickly like, "Do you even need to ask?"
It rubbed off on me because when I went on jobs I never cared about workers whining over shit. "Get to it" was my attitude, and pointing out their mistakes became easy.
Many times I told people that he was the only person I would miss when I left Syracuse. I guess I still think of him enough. I still use him as a work reference for food/bev jobs. I trust he'll say something positive enough about me.
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