SC - Private-auction

[LrdRas]

Hi all from Anne-Marie
re: feast structure and budgetting.

Here in Madrone, we have done it many ways.

Our annual Baronial Banquet is always a sell out, so we know weeks ahead of
time that we are cooking for 150, say. 

We also hold an annual peasants revel, where a simple meal of stew, bread,
etc, is provided for as many as attend the event. We usually take the
number who came last year as a guideline, with the understanding that the
stew can be bulked up or down accordingly, and stretched with a run to the
store iff need be.

We hosted a "boon day meal" at an outdoor event last year. We pre-sold
tickets, and then provided 10% again as many for folks on site. This worked
well for us, in that most everyone got to eat and we had the perfect amount
of food (most everyone but about 10% of the people had pre-registered).

It amazes me folks who are willing to cook for an unspecifie number of
people and possibly stick the event budget with potential HUGE cost
overruns. But then, as an autocrate, I'm a notorious tightwad. :)

We also run frequent potlucks, and these are usually very successful.
There's a few tricks, at least up here. Having the hosting barony provide a
meat main dish (paid for out of event fees), works well. Then you make sure
to hit up your friends who cook and ask them to bring Three quiches or
something along those lines, ie use them as shills. We also tend to assign
dishes by fun categories, ie persona (British Isles brings main dish,
mainland Europe brings side dish and middle eastern brings dessert), or by
how far they travelled (the folks assigned bread and cheese are those with
no kitchen within easy access). Oh, and make sure that folks know how much
food is an appropriate contribution. I say a dish that serves 8-10 people
is good for ONE person. Ie, a pie. A pie is not a contribution for you,
your lord and your three teenage kids.

I also find that someone in a Position of Authority standing up and going
over the rules for happy potlucks helps, ie:
1. there's lots of dishes. dont feel you need to take some of everything
2. if there's one thing you really love, you don't need to load your plate
up with it. Ask for the recipe so you can make it at home.
3. Look ahead of you at the amount of food on the table.
4. Look behind you at the line of people still to come.
5. Be sensible and polite and guage your portions accordingly.
6. DONT TOUCH THE FOOD WITH YOUR FINGERS!!!!!

Basic common sense stuff like that.

hope this helps some...its interesting to hear how other areas do things.
- --AM
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