For many, food is an important day-to-day life experience. Yet when planning a funeral or celebration of life, the refreshments or meal provided oftentimes isn't reflective of the life of the person being remembered. Today, Antigoni Sander, Director of Catering for Hightop Hospitality (a restaurant, retail, catering, and event venue company in the Twin Cities) shares tips and trends as it pertains to end-of-life events.

This episode was hosted and produced by Anne Morehouse, original music created and performed by Caileen Viehweg.

Contact info for today's episode:

Antigoni Sander, Director of Catering, Hightop Hospitality: [email protected]

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Catering Tips - Hightop Hospitality

  :25 Welcome Antigoni Sander, Director of Catering

  :40 What is Hightop Hospitality?

 1:25 Suggestions for planning food for a funeral reception/celebration of life

 2:44 Why talk about it? How can food be reflective of a person’s life?

 5:24 Trends in funerals/celebrations of life from a catering perspective

 7:30 How to plan for guest count

 8:11 The menu planning process

 8:34 Budgeting for food and catering

10:49 Planning by religion, cultural menus and family recipes

13:57 Anne’s experience

15:00 Antigoni’s example for bringing a favorite food to the table 

15:39 Creating a memorable event with food

16:25 Take mental notes by asking questions

17:00 Eco-friendly events

18:20 The benefit of planning ahead 

20:51 Antigoni’s advice: Delegate catering to a trusted person.

23:25 Be your own advocate - speak up if there is anything you want done differently.

24:45 Antigoni invites people to reach out, even in advance.