Cater Connect

Meet Linda Nardilli Morrin, the Owner of Cater Connect in North Bay

When you call Cater Connect, you get Linda Nardilli Morrin. She has lived in Nipissing Village, half an hour down the road from North Bay, for 41 years, and for the thirteen years before Cater Connect she was Pasta Hostess, cooking in kitchens from West Nipissing to Mattawa and south to Huntsville and Bracebridge.

Linda is a second generation Canadian of Italian heritage. She came north from Toronto, where she worked for the Children's Aid Society as a foster parent support worker and in child protection. Her husband Stephen had hitchhiked across Canada three times and always found the people in North Bay friendly and welcoming, so when the two of them wanted out of the city, he picked North Bay. Four moves in two years later, with a baby on the way, they bought the house in Nipissing Village they still live in.

In North Bay, Linda worked as a social worker at St. Joseph's Hospital and was one of the first shelter workers at the Nipissing Transition House. Ask her what those years taught her and she gives you two things: gratitude, and problem solving. Her kids still tease her about it. If something went wrong she would say, OK kids, we are moving to Plan B. I have no idea what that is yet, but that is where we are going.

Catering in North Bay Since 2012: Pasta Hostess

Linda started Pasta Hostess in 2012, a year after she retired from social work, after about three years as a guest chef at a friend's cooking studio. Her Nonna Clarina cut pasta by hand with a knife, and Linda still remembers the smells of that kitchen. Her mother added the other half: if you are putting it on a plate, make it look beautiful. People eat with their eyes first.

The classes became catering almost by accident. Jennifer Nickerson at the Business Centre Nipissing Parry Sound asked Linda to cater a joint event with PARO. Linda said no, drove home, and called back. For three years running she was one of the guest chefs for Feast on the Farm. After the third year her husband, who had been chopping vegetables beside her, said this is the last year. She agreed. What she loves is the small, intimate dinner, where she can see people come together around a table and know she made that happen.

One of her Facebook recommendations puts it this way: Linda takes care of ALL the details, can easily accommodate dietary needs, and left our kitchen spotless and sanitized.

What Cater Connect Does: Finding the Right Caterer or Personal Chef for Your Event

About two years ago, carrying gear in and out of cars and houses was getting harder, and Linda was not ready to close the door on food. So she asked herself what she could do with all that experience that would still help people. The answer was Cater Connect.

A consultant, in her words, is someone who brings years of experience and expertise that you do not have. Planning a wedding is stressful. A celebration of life comes when you are already emotionally thin. You may not have the time, the energy or the knowledge to find and vet a caterer. Linda does that part for you.

Here is how it works. You meet Linda face to face or by phone and she asks about your food dream: what do you see on the day? Then she fills in the details, the date, the place, the numbers, the allergies. She sends a short note to her chef and catering contacts: small wedding, eighty people, Bonfield, barbecue and salads or Italian, who is available? The ones who are free get the full brief and send back a quote that spells out what is included and what is not. Linda sends you the quotes, you choose, and she introduces you and the caterer by email so you can sort out the day together. After the event she calls both of you to ask how it went. A caterer who consistently gets poor reviews from her clients is not approached again. Her aim is the complete satisfaction of the people she is helping.

What to Know Before You Hire a Caterer in North Bay

Linda's advice comes down to two questions. First, pricing: what does the quote include, and what does it leave out? Staff, serving, gratuity built in or at your discretion? Clients reaching out to multiple caterers on their own may not find out these important details when it counts.

Second, allergies and food intolerances. Ask how comfortable and how flexible the chef is with them. In Linda's words, if they hem and haw, that answers it right there. With a big group like a wedding, you want everyone walking away from the table safe.

How Linda Handles Allergies and Dietary Needs

When Linda cooks, the plates for the celiac, gluten free or vegan guests get made first, so there is no cross contamination. She keeps a pot and a colander that are only used for those guests, and a pasta machine that only ever touches gluten free dough.

Adam Harwood had her cater a staff Christmas lunch and wrote that Linda goes above and beyond to take care of some of our staff that have dietary restrictions, and they loved it.

Still Cooking: Small Dinners, Rehearsal Dinners and the Ice Fishing Crew

Linda still takes the small jobs herself: dinner parties for six to eight, a small wedding, a rehearsal dinner the night before. Every winter a group of fellows drives up from southwestern Ontario to ice fish. She cooks them dinner, then packs them a lunch to take out on the ice the next day.

She endeavours to source local produce and products as availability allows.

Inclusivity, Community Partnerships and Authenticity

Those are Linda's three words, and she can tell you what each one looks like on a Saturday night. Inclusivity means everybody is welcome at her table, whatever their race, gender or relationship. She wants all of her guests to know they are safe and not judged.

Community partnerships means supporting the other people in the food business. During Covid, when clients asked to buy gift certificates from her, she told them to spend the money at the restaurants that were still open and still had staff to pay. Other caterers are not her competition. They are her sisters and brothers in the food industry, and if she is not the right fit for you, she will say so and point you to someone who is.

Authenticity means being who she says she is and delivering what she says she will. If a chef promises to accommodate your request, it had better be on the plate the day of. That one comes straight from her social work ethics.

Catering Help for North Bay, Nipissing, Callander, Sturgeon Falls, Mattawa and Muskoka

Who should call Cater Connect? Anyone with an event and not enough time, energy or knowledge to find the caterer themselves. Brides and grooms, an office Christmas lunch, a girls' weekend, a family birthday, a celebration of life. Three of her recent weddings were couples living out of town, including a military couple from Kitchener getting married on a relative's lake property, and the reaction was the same each time: thank God you are here.

Linda is not a hard sell. If Cater Connect is not right for you, she wishes you well and means it.

What to Expect When You Call Cater Connect

You will talk briefly with Linda about what she does. If you want to go ahead, you pay a flat fee up front, and she does her research. Neither you nor the caterer gets the other's contact details until she has been paid and the work is done. From there you get quotes you can compare side by side, and a person to call when a question comes up.

When she is not in someone's kitchen, Linda is in a canoe, on the golf course twice a week, on snowshoes, or working on the family heritage albums with help from a genealogist in Italy. She and Stephen are jivers, and they have won contests to prove it. Her line for all of it: I just have joy every day. I am grateful every day.