The Poisoned Client

** I momentarily interrupt June to bring you July...while sitting CURSED at the Harrisburg Airport, waiting patiently to find out if our 3 hour delay will turn into a cancellation...and you thought I was kidding about the curse....**

The Poisoned Client

While my travel curse is known from coast to coast, continent to continent, my ‘poisoned client’ curse is only now picking up steam.

In my line of work, I do a good amount of travel and a fair amount of client entertaining. As we’re in the food business, we tend to skip the “Let me impress you with a McDonald’s Happy Meal dinner” and at least go to somewhat nice restaurants that likely have passed any recent health inspections.

Last year my client Cathy brought her new hire Kate to the photo shoot. Kate was 7 months pregnant, one month on the job, and in the process of transferring to Camden from Chicago. Needless to say, a nice dinner out to toast the success of our photo shoot was embraced by all, especially Kate. We decided nothing said, “Open your wallet, you’re on expenses” quite like Crofton on Wells. Crofton on Wells is at least 10 steps above McDonald’s, and just slightly below serious fine dining in Chicago – regardless, a well known restaurant with a well know chef.

Anyone that knows me, has dined with me, or even thinks about dining with me knows what a pain in the a** dining companion I can be. I admit it, I’m a high maintenance food substitution snob. A recent true lunch order at Ruby Tuesdays, “Can I have the mini burgers please, no meat though, sub with sautéed mushrooms instead, no ketchup, no mustard, and if you put a pickle on the plate, I will freak out.” I’m fairly certain our waitress rolled her eyes at this point and muttered under her breath, “Great, one of those….” So at Crofton on Wells, imagine my co-workers surprise when I order a meal without substitutions and sit back to hear Kate order the following, “I’d like the scallops but no mussel reduction sauce. I’m allergic to shellfish, so can you sub the sauce with a different sauce.” Ah, a girl after my own heart!

Dining with a bunch of foodies has its challenges. Not knowing what a morel is in front of your dining companions can be embarrassing, or how about ordering your steak well done instead of medium rare, salting your food before tasting it, etc. But frankly, ordering the scallops while subbing the reduction sauce due to a shellfish allergy is a major faux pas – scallops are shellfish so this simple, yet complicated order either infers that 1. Kate is a liar, she’s not allergic or 2. Kate is not a foodie, she doesn’t know what classifies as shellfish.

The next morning Cathy walks in to the shoot…but where is Kate? Apparently at 3:00 a.m., Kate is rushed to Northwestern Memorial Hospital with, you guessed it, food poisoning. My co-workers and I are all in shock, and one by one they all start pointing fingers at me, “It’s you, Su! You are the curse…you tried poisoning your client! How could you?” So unfair – she ordered shellfish, and said she was allergic to shellfish, what do you expect? And unfortunately for Cathy, dinner at Crofton on Wells was the last time she ever saw Kate again. Kate never transferred to Camden, had her baby in Chicago, and promptly resigned which only cemented my reputation of “Su – the Client Poisoner”.

I have managed to skate by poison-free for the past year, until last night. You see, I’m in Philly and yes, I took my client Liz out to dinner last night. Liz is not only a great client, but a ton of fun to hang out with as well. We had a great dinner at El Vez, great conversation, but apparently bad chicken. Liz was beginning to look at little flush by the end of our dinner, her stomach in knots (she swears it wasn’t because we negotiating contracts) and the sweat beads started to form by the time the bill came.

This morning I received a phone call from Liz, “Su – hey, I just wanted to check up on you and see how you were feeling.” Huh? Oh, crap…. “Liz, you didn’t by chance get FOOD POISONING last night, did you?” “Yes, I was praying to the porcelain gods, flu-like symptoms, fevers, night sweats, worst night of my life.” “Umm…do you feel better today, maybe going into the office? “ “Yes, much better this morning, just wanted to make sure you’re okay.” Well, as luck would have it for me, I did not get food poisoning. Although God has found humor to torture me in other ways with food, which is a story for another day.

While Liz is not planning on resigning (or at least, I’m unaware of it), she is moving off of her business and into a new position. Food poisoning + last day of current position = “You must have had dinner with Su.