What caterers need for the holidays: A Red Bull

The economy may still be in the soup, but my caterer readers are hard at work on holiday parties.

At Special Events, we're trying to wrap up interviews with prominent caterers for an article in our next issue. But we can't—they are just too busy right now.

Either they are happily busy with a lot of bookings or frantic-busy, trying to accommodate any and all last-minute business because the season is slow. As one caterer told me, "This December is the slowest I've seen in 22 years here. It's just an unfortunate scramble with trying to accommodate things that come in daily for a two-day to one-week average turnaround."

Here's hoping those quickie turnarounds bring in lots of dough.