Cooking for a crowd can a be a petrifying responsibility. The stress of getting the menu right, finding quality ingredients, knowing the audience’s likes and dislikes, calculating the timing and having everything come together exactly as planned is, well, real effort. When that crowd includes hungry stage hands, lighting engineers, ravenous bus drivers and members of one of the most successful bands in the world, the job just got a lot more exciting. Enter Dega Catering and the backstage scene with the Dave Matthews Band.
The setting is the June 27 stop in Camden, New Jersey, on this summer’s tour. Helming the kitchen crew of 13 was Andrew Miller, an account manager for Dega Catering. Ensuring that the food was exactly what was expected for the annual summer tour for a top-grossing band was no small feat. In keeping with the band’s mission of environmental stewardship, farms and local vendors were tapped both out of need and out of desire to provide the fuel for the constantly in-motion roadshow. Reverb, the greening partner for the band, helps align farms with the tour’s needs, as well as promote earth-friendly practices backstage, like composting and the use of refillable water bottles. Responsible for staffing at each venue, Miller relegates the culinary firepower to Chef Fiona Bohane.
In Camden, Bohane prepared soft shell crabs in the form of sliders. The ubiquitous Chesapeake Bay area crab was the right fit for a menu that highlighted local fare. The 16-year veteran of the Dave Matthews Band’s traveling kitchen teamed with her crew to develop the evening’s menu, making the most of trout from a nearby aquafarm as well as pork loin chops from Philly Cow Share. The array of vegetables come from Maple Acres Farm in Plymouth Meeting. There was produce everywhere, scattered about every horizontal surface of the kitchen. Heirloom carrots were being prepped. Thyme was being chopped for the herb butter. Bloody, bloody red strawberries were being pureed for strawberry turnovers of puff pastry and coulis. Succotash with pole beans were being chopped. Dustin Atkinson, the tour rookie, was constantly in motion. Hopping between the knife-work for his succotash and flipping reubens on the grill, he smiled with his eyes, “I love it!” Local supermarkets played a role, as well. Cherry Hill’s Wegmans got the grocery business, lining up cart after cart to supply the 60 breakfasts, 80 lunches and 120 dinners at the amphitheater venue.
Not without its own set of unique challenges, the tour business does not relent when circumstances do not go as planned. Miller laughs about it now, but he told of the “foot of water in the kitchen” in always-rainy Tampa, Florida. “You adapt,” he sighed. Bohane added, “We lost half the dinner and had to cut power; don’t be a hero,” they both laughed. Sometimes the challenge is the locale itself. With the farm focus and conspicuous absence of portable refrigeration, the menu is very much dictated by what is available. Bohane explained that the menus are scripted based on “where we are. And mood.” In Mississippi, for example, “We had snapper and ruby red shrimp that tasted like lobster.” And, “Iowa could have been a crap shoot, but three-quarters of a mile from the venue was a farm with cabbage, sugar snaps [peas] and potatoes.” The very-pregnant Bohane did not surrender and take an easy course. “No pizza,” said Miller, stoically. “We have some picky eaters, but that’s what the deli trays are for.” In addition to some selective consumers, there are vegans, vegetarians and gluten avoiders.
But this isn’t a demanding band, said Bohane. “Everybody loves food.” Is there pressure when Dave Matthews is eating this bustling kitchen’s fare in the next room? “There is a family atmosphere. Some of the crew have been here from the start. It’s family space.” She went on, “They are your bosses, but they are family.”
Putting the finish on an arugula, strawberry salad with candied pecans, Geoff Trump, the band’s tour director, stopped into the kitchen to praise the crew. “[The salad] was remarkable. This stuff is alchemy,” he said as he dashed off.
Between Miller and Chef Bohane, the duo ensures each stop on the national tour is replete with local flavor, expertly produced dishes and harmony. This night, following the show, feeding the band falls on the responsibility of local restaurants. On a mission to serve up Philly’s best cheesesteak, a genuine tasting panel is assembled in the kitchen to critique samples. Under examination: Steve’s Prince of Steaks, Geno’s, Ishkabibble and Oregon Steaks. Marissa Love, on the crew for a year, handily slapped down cilantro for the evening’s trout with brown butter and herbs and took a break to taste-test. “This one is tough,” she said as she pointed to the Geno’s sample. Chiming in, Zack Tickler, the three-tour veteran, dished, “Whiz is the creaminess, the provolone is the flavor.” The impromptu tasting pushed Steve’s Prince of Steaks out front as the winner with the consensus that this specimen would make its way to the band’s after-show table.
Traveling crew, local runners and staff all mesh with the constant juggle of the variables in meeting up with local farmers and the mystery of working in unfamiliar surrounds. It all makes for a great show, even before the main act goes on stage.
Follow Dega Catering on tour @degacatering on Twitter and the band’s greening partner, Reverb, at @reverbrocks.
- Photo credits: Jim Berman
