Microsoft Access Situation

Question

I have a very specific question with Microsoft access. right now it is where I store a lot of my data for work. I'm new, so it's just what the company has ALWAYS been using, and i want to make it more efficient. So listen to the situation, and I'd love to hear input.

We store information on catering companies. So we have a table that is filled from a form. In that table we have the ID (auto populated),the name of the company, the city that it is in, and the number of store fronts (but that number isn't always applicable because many companies don't have a store), and the ID number of a dish that they make (not this dish name, it is only the ID number).

I have another table with an the ID number mentioned above, the name of the dish, and the genre of food it belongs to (ie italian, indian, american, etc.).

The issue I'm encountering is with the form I mentioned earlier that fills the table with the caterers information. I am in charge of adding caters too the list, but the form requires you to add each dish to the caterer one by one. some caterers can have 100+ items on their menu, in different food genres, and I have to add it all by hand. I need to be able to filter my results in two ways:

1. I need to be able to search for a specific dish and find all of the caterers that cook that dish
2. I need to be able to search for a caterer and see all of the dishes that they cook (and be able to update this as they add dishes or take them away)

I'm looking for a way to create a form that will allow me add a new caterer and then go through the list of dishes I have and check off the dishes that apply to that caterer, all at once instead of adding it one by one.

Thank you so much in advance... I know it is a lot to read!!!