sca-cooks Re: End of the Feast -Reply

[Sean Ellwood]

Mark Schuldenfrei wrote:
> 
> Someone (Sean?) wrote:
>   > Any have any suggestions on how to get
>   > comfortable cooking for 200 rather than 40?
> 
> Gunther wrote:
>   Comfortable?  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
>   You'll never be comfortable as Head cook!  Abandon all hope!
> 
> Nope.
> 
> Plan, plan, plan some more.  Make lists, work out timelines, make some more
> lists.  Have people you know, and trust, practice the recipes and take
> charge of each one.
> 
> It isn't that bad.

I was going to address this and hadn't figured out how to do so
delicately.  If we (the experienced cooks) make it seem like cooking is
the greatest trial and a miserable experience, how will we ever get
others to join our ranks?  

This is like saying to newcomers "Oh, fighting is miserable, you get all
hot and sweaty and bruised and battered and it takes forever to learn to
be any good and its mortifying when you lose and the equipment is
expensive and some big Duke is probably going to beat the tar out of
you".  Certainly not what we do where I'm from, and not a very good
incentive to getting people to fight.

Yes, cooking feasts is a lot of work.  But with some reasonable
organization and advance planning, it doesn't need to be a miserable
experience.  I teach a whole class on Feast Planning for our Kingdom
University and it sells out every time, so there's certainly interest
out there in "doing it and doing it well".  My great tool for feast
planning is the clear plastic sheet-covers.  You can put the period
recipe on one side, the redaction on the other, and write on it with a
grease pencil to check off steps, or note "cooling in left hand  fridge"
or whatever.

Keilyn