SC - Steppes 12th Night Report (real freaking long)

[Michael F. Gunter]

Good Day Everyone,

As promised here's my report for my 12th Night feast of last Saturday.

We had a wonderful large hall with a kitchen I've dreamed about. Much of the
dishes had been pre-cooked so all they needed was defrosting and assembly.

Then the problems began. We were in the kitchen by 8:00 p.m. on Friday and just as
things were beginning to swing the owners closed up by midnight. We were back
in around 8:30 on Saturday morning.

Things seemed to be going pretty well most of the day except for small problems
such as I had to change the way I did the boiled cream tarts as they were not
setting up properly and I had to send people out to the store a couple of times
for supplies.

The people began coming...and coming... and coming. I had hoped for around 375,
cooked for around 400. When the gate hit 400 the autocrats started to get worried,
I said "no problem" I can stretch things to 450 if need be".  As the count reached
445 it was suggested that I not allow feast to anyone else. "No, I will feed 
everybody for that is the Swedish tradition!" said the not-too-bright Ansteorran
knight. As the gate count reached 500, the said dim-wit began to sweat as well.

Luckily, the Crown agreed to having the feast served at 6:00 so that the servers
would have time to be fed beforehand. Uh, oh! There were no tables left for the
servers to eat at. Those wonderful ladies and gentlemen, some who vastly outranked
the poor Head Cook, ate with thier plates on their laps in their finest 12th Night
garb.

More problems, the apple fritters needed to be cooked and served immediately and
the sauces for the pork weren't finished. There were also only 30 servers for
500 feasters. The menu plan was for each course to be served all at once but there
was no way one person could bring a complete meal for 24 people at once. The 
Head Server, although very competant, had never organized for more than 200 people
at once so she was a little overwhelmed. The final solution was that I served the
Spiced beef first and held the pork until the sauces were finished. The servers
would only take out one or two dishes at a time.  The diners were a little
disgruntled at first, only getting a small piece of beef and a bit of Carrot tart.
But I did hope that they would start to get a nearly continuous line of food
coming out.

There were waits and delays, some people were overlooked for servings, I made a 
few rounds around the hall to see how people were holding up and tried to fix the
problems I found. To stretch things a bit we took the chicken and citrus from the
broth of one dish and made pasta in the broth. But then we found out people were
getting so full that we made it an optional dish just before the final dish was
served (the boiled cream tart).

I got many compliments, was asked for several recipes, anybody that wasn't full I
invited back for more. A couple of people I gave money back to because they had 
been overlooked by the servers (I also filled doggy bags for them. They were going
to eat my feast one way or the other!)

I decided not to do the side board platters because Court began after feast and it
was already late as well as everybody seemed full.

I've taken to calling this my "loaves and fishes" feast. I even had leftovers,
though not many. If anybody partook of this feast I would like to know your 
impressions, both pro and con.

I will post a menu with commentary in a later post.

There you have it. I'm still tired.

Yers,

Gunthar
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