Where the Chips Fell
by Michael Schulman
Those of us old enough to remember the 1980s remember them as the first high-tech boom time, before the Internet was invented. Wanting to get my piece of the Massachusetts economic miracle, I founded a catering company, Michaelangelo’s, (“from our palette to your palate,”) and word about us spread through businesses, hospitals and universities like icing over a warm cake. A client at a prestigious college introduced me to a powerful and well-connected colleague, who booked a luncheon attended by their president.
So we used the fanciest presentation and ingredients, making everything beautiful and special. The client was a self-proclaimed foodie, and despite her very busy schedule, loved to talk about recipes and cooking techniques, and to hear my latest catering exploits. She was happy because she thought I was treating her special, and I was happy because I was getting an in with the president's office.
We made her a poppy seed cake with cream cheese frosting. A simple, elegant cake which clients rarely ordered, as most preferred chocolate or carrot cake. But her group was more sophisticated, and open to trying new things.
When she sent payment, she enclosed a note raving about the food. “That was one of the best cakes I've ever eaten. I don’t know if you share your recipes, but if you do, would you send me the recipe?”
She was the kind of client that would insist that I send her my recipe for rugaluch, which my Grandmother gave me before she went to her grave and which will accompany me to mine. But since the poppy seed cake recipe was right out of The New York Times Herb and Spice Cookbook—and she didn’t know that—I was happy to send it. I had just completed a year-long odyssey of getting all of my recipes onto disks, so that instead of looking at dog-eared and annotated clippings—or worse, my hieroglyphic handwriting—my staff would have recipes to follow that were all in a consistent, clear format. I used my state-of-the-art Macintosh SE 30 (32 MB of RAM and a 40 MB hard drive!)
“I’ll make you a deal. Rewrite your hand-written letter of thanks on official letterhead for me to use in my portfolio and I’ll send it to you.”
She wrote the most glowing recommendation ever, which I used until I sold the business thirteen years later. It talked about how every phase of the process of working with Michaelangelo's was a pleasure: from planning the menu (the only problem was choosing from all the possibilities), the cooperative service both on the phone and during delivery, the beautiful presentation, and the "agony" of having to destroy it by eating it. "But hunger overrules art," she gushed. She ended her letter: "Although Mark Twain wrote in The Innocents Abroad (1869) ‘I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast—for luncheon—for dinner—for tea—for supper—for between meals’ he was wrong. I do!"
“Are you writing a cookbook?” she asked when she called to thank me for the recipe.
“Right now it’s just for my staff. But one day I’d like to—“
“Are you using a computer? What kind?”
“A Macintosh.”
"Don't you love it! Hey, Michael," and her voice got sugary. "I have a Macintosh too."
I knew right away what she was getting at: give her more recipes. “Really! We must be the only two people in all of Cambridge who have the same computer!”
“Michael! Do you know how easy it is to copy a disk on a Macintosh?”
"Gee, no, I don't," I bluffed.
She described the process in precise, easy-to-follow detail.
“Wow, thanks. I’ll have to remember that if I ever have to copy a disk.”
"You know, Michael. If you ever had a friend who did you a lot of favors—like getting you jobs and raving about your company—it would be so easy to copy all your recipes on disk for her."
“Great! If any of my friends ever do that, I'll know how to thank them."
“I’m sending you some floppy disks.”
“Thanks! I could use some more.”
They arrived with a self-addressed postage-paid envelope, and a note: “Let your conscience be your guide.”
Her guerilla guilt tactics were wearing down my resistance. Plus, I needed her business, and wanted her to continue to spread the word about us. I asked my sous-chef if he thought I should send her some recipes.
“Sure. Then why don’t you send her the keys to the commissary, and tell her to stop by to do her shopping. And siphon the gas out of your car into hers.”
A friend had just given me two disks of the latest games, including a treasure hunt through the jungle with "Mississippi Smith" (a la Indiana Jones,) and "Wheel of Fortune" in which, as you quit the program, an animation of Vanna White would say "bye-bye." (My computer talked to me!)
So I copied them into two disks labeled “Master Recipe Disk Volume 1” and “Volume 2,” and created a series of folders she’d have to click until she got to the games. I enclosed a note saying, “Don’t get overwhelmed trying all these at once.”
She must have realized that she was trying to bite off more than I would let her chew, because her only response was a terse note: “Michael, I think you forgot some ingredients.”
Michael Schulman has been catering for 30 years, and has traveled in Europe and Brazil exploring new ingredients and creating new recipes. He upgraded the memory on his MacBook Pro, but it still rarely does what he wants.
You can see more about Michael, including links to published work, at
