For Petaluma chef, catering is the art of spreading happiness

What makes the perfect party?

Is it the event’s locale or setting?

The chemical reactions sparked from a perfectly combined guest-list?

For Bethany Barsman, it’s the food, and she would know. She’s been catering all kinds of gatherings in and around Petaluma for years.

“The food is what people talk about when the party is over,” Barsman says. “It’s what they remember a lot of the time. They gather around the food, they can talk about it, enjoy it together. It elevates your mood if you’re eating good food.”

Barsman is the owner and operator of OTL Fine Catering - aka Out to Lunch Catering – operating from a semi-secret, subterranean kitchen in downtown Petaluma. She grew up in Santa Rosa, and after graduating from Montgomery High School, worked in all kinds of restaurants, from McDonald’s to the now-defunct Sourdough Rebo’s.

But it was under Lisa Hemingway at We Cater that Barsman discovered her passion: making food, presenting it beautifully and transporting it all over town and beyond in the back of her car.

“There was so much creativity,” recalls Barsman, relaxing for a few minutes after a full day on her black Chuck Taylor-clad feet. Of Hemingway’s culinary concoctions, she says, “To this day, I remember the taste of all of her food. She was an amazing chef. She had very high expectations. Her method was throw you in and you either sink or swim. She was so busy and had so many balls in the air that you had to. There’s a lot of growth that comes with that.”

In 1993, Barsman took what she learned and went out on her own. A lot has changed since those days when she made grab-and-go breakfast burritos for now-defunct businesses like Deaf Dog coffee and the Food for Thought grocery store. But she has survived those ups-and-downs, the food fads, and even ridden the wave of current must-have party fare like gluten free and vegan appetizers.

During the first tech boom of the 1990s, Barsman’s business saw an influx of corporate catering jobs. Today, she is happily working mostly on her favorite type of gig - the special occasions that mark people’s lives.

“I love everything from meeting with the people to cooking to being an important part of people’s special occasions,” she says. “I can’t describe the feeling when we do it really well and an event is really great.”

Of course, there are the times when it doesn’t go so smoothly. Like that time a couple hosted a dinner to celebrate their new kitchen remodel and the oven door came off as Barsman was filling it with food.

At least it makes a good story.

“It’s all about being resourceful,” she says. “You have to go to the neighbor’s or make do with the stovetop.” The main thing, Barsman says, is remaining creative and adaptable. “There are so many moving parts – you’re traveling, you’re packing everything with you.”

Barsman operates with a staff that fluctuates up and down, depending on the events on her calendar, out of a commercial kitchen in the basement of the Copperfield’s building.

Asked if she imagine having her own restaurant one day, Barsman says, “The idea of just being in a central location and not having to pack up all the time would be great.”

But for now, she loves working with that special “party alchemy” that only comes from catering large and small events. What Barsman has discovered is that, in the end, her job is all about making people happy, and she’s learned that the ultimate proof of an event’s success is how the guests remember it. Admitting that party hosts tend to focus on everything that might go wrong with an event, she’s seen that the guests tend to just everything that went right.

“They’re just there to have a good time,” she says.

So making sure that happens is a big part of her mission.

“I wish sometimes we were just responsible for the food,” she allows, “but a lot of times it’s making sure the flow is correct, that every mark is hit at the same time. It’s an energy flow. You want everyone to enjoy themselves. When you go to Disneyland, you don’t want to see the wires or electric boxes.”