Odellia Etaat left three years in corporate financial planning to launch Mize Dining, the luxury private dining brand that made her the chef New York's most discerning hosts call first, from Manhattan to the Hamptons. It started with her sister's birthday brunch: the group skipped hiring a private chef because "Odellia cooks," and she woke the next morning to a hundred screenshots of her food by 8am. Weeks after quitting, a stranger's phone call handed her a 60-person investor dinner for The Coconut Cult with one week's notice; her aunt and sister were the staff. We cover the month she tested 10-course menus on her family, her quit-or-go-back deadline, the overbooked stretch of four dinners a week on two hours of sleep, building a team of sous chefs and servers, four pounds of caviar, why no client has ever gotten a repeat menu, and her advice fo ...