SC - Competitions?

[Michael F. Gunter]

> In my experience, you can't feed a
> crowd and instruct them, too.  When I've tried to give just a few words
> about the feast or some aspect of it, people didn't completely stop
> talking even for the herald's request for quiet.

Ah, but you can! No, you can't make them stop talking for you to tell about
the research of this recipe or the delicate spicing but you can print up 
a pamphlet detailing the feast, ingredients, and research. I did just that
at my 12th Night Feast. Another thing to remember about people at (or just
before) feast, they're often bored. Giving them something to read can really
help their enjoyment of the meal if they know about it.

> Classes, IMO, are the
> best place to describe theory/recipes/procedures or any other aspect. 
> Folks come prepared to listen.

I wholeheartedly agree. I think classes are wonderful for getting together 
people of interest but that is usually an instructor/student relationship
and not a constructive criticism environment.

> If I want feedback for the 'feed', I just listen to the hum--if it's happy,
> you can tell.

That is part of it, but as was stated earlier you usually only get the good
criticism and not the bad unless you happen to be good friends with cooks
in the crowd. A good way to tell if things are going well is to see how much
gets eaten. (Side note: I've discovered not to allow seconds on anything until
the courses are served. Too many times has my first course been consumed and
the second barely touched because everyone filled up on the first.)

> For detailed feedback, a
> competition entry is good, and you can get assorted reactions to
> classes--some learned, some not.  It's nice we have the whole gamut to
> run for whatever purpose we need.

And an earlier posting did set me straight on that issue. But I'll probably
still not enter competition but just keep feeding the hungry.

Yers,

Gunthar
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