[Ansteorra] Late Night Court

Morgan Cain (Ansteorra) morgancain at earthlink.net
Tue Apr 23 05:12:22 PDT 2002


>        A typical event seems to have activities scheduled until 3 or 4 in
the
> afternoon with feast starting around 7:00, or sometimes 6:00.

You missed something to suggest, Robert - fill in the dead time with some
court.  Not just if feast starts at 7:00pm, but any long chunk of dead time.
I've seen it done elsewhere, don't know why Ansteorra insists upon holding
court only after supper.  Especially if you have awards to give to children
or other people who may not be able to stay to a later court, it makes sense
to have an early court for those at least.

And I know there are order meetings.  But I have also seen events where they
start the order meetings in the morning and keep them to a schedule, which
is pre-announced so that people know when and where to appear and how long
they will have.  It all depends upon the management style of the Royalty
whether this can work or not.

> Personally I would
> prefer to have feast over and done with in an hour, but I realize
> that's not very likely.  An hour and a half would be great.

We try.  At least I do.  But do you  know what some of the problems are?  A
cook who plans too many courses (I do three, four at most, which can be
served in ninety minutes).  Too few people in kitchen to help during set-up
of the platters (the last feast I served, someone walked in midfeast to chat
with crew and take pictures, and smirked at me when I told him bluntly to
help out or get out - he of course left).  People serving tables who do not
come when called, thereby dragging out the service.  And entertainment that
runs long thereby delaying a course.

>        What can be done?  If we could start feast promptly at 6:00 and be
> done by 7:30, start Court by 8:00 and end by 10:00 that would be a huge
> improvement.

This assumes that Court can be done in two hours.  Sometimes it can,
sometimes it cannot - depends upon the number of awards and thank-yous.

>        I mean no disrespect to those of give of their time and talents to
> prepare our feasts.  The skill of our Ansteorran cooks is amazing.
Perhaps
> it's unrealistic of me to expect that feasts should run faster.  I've
never
> prepared one and probably have no idea how much work is involved.

Good point.  It also depends upon the skill of the cook, the cooperation of
the Royalty and others (if you have Royalty in order meetings thereby
delaying the start of feast, or who demand that you change the order of the
courses, or insist that their buddies who have an hourlong entertainment
planned be allowed to do it all between the second and third courses.....),
the number of persons eating (it's easier to serve fast for sixty or a
hundred than it is for 250-400) and number and skill of helpers in the
kitchen and serving.  If you want to get an idea about how a kitchen runs
for feast, at least offer to help with the setup of platters -- and be
prepared to haul heavy pans of meat, slice them into portions for 350 or so,
and get them distributed onto platters with the appropriate side-dishes, in
the space of twenty minutes and while keeping everything hot.

It may or may not be unrealistic to expect that feasts run faster.  I have
been to an Event in the West Kingdom where the feast has one course every 45
minutes or an hour.  People fill the time in between with dancing (european,
so they can participate, not demonstration dances).  That's just the way it
is.

                                        ---= Morgan


==============================================================
Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep.
                        ---= Fran Lebowitz





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