SC - another - Rose water question

[Seton1355@aol.com]

- -----Original Message-----
From: CONNECT at aol.com <CONNECT at aol.com>
>I guess I must be nuts. I would no more ask someone to go shop for
>ingredients for me than I would to clean up after me. I take it as a level
of
>consideration and responsibility, I guess. Because I made the mess, I have
to
>clean it up.


I sincerely hope you're now not insinuating that we who don't have to clean
up are inconsiderate and irresponsible. I may be making the mess but I
delegate to some pretty cheerful individuals who WANT to do this. I have, as
yet, to see someone being held at sword point to clean up a kitchen. If this
makes me a Prima Donna so be it...at least I don't have anything to complain
about.

>I would consider it rude to ask someone else to take care of the clean up.
I
>am grateful to those who would help, and I even ask specific people to help
>well in advance of the event, but I would never ditch out on them once
theyshowed up.


This is where we basically differ I think Rosalyn. I don't see cleaning up
as "part and parcel" as you do. My job ends when I "oversee" the clean up
and make sure its done and done to MY standards. I feel this makes for a
more effective Kitchen Steward who can focus more on what their craft is.
And mine is not Pot Scrubber.

>It comes down to the level of participation, perhaps. Because it's been
>drilled into me that I should never ask anyone to do something that I
>wouldn't be willing to do, I expect to do clean up.


Its not that I am not WILLING to do it, its just that I think this is a
shared job. There is such a thing as spreading yourself too thin and when
that happens the integrity of your feast is compromised. I won't do that. As
well, get some unexperienced person in your kitchen and it might just spark
some interest in them to "graduate" from pot scubber to chopper to co-cook
to a brand new Kitchen Steward

Respectfully Yours
Micaylah

	I have to agree with Micaylah, and I think there's
	a level of compromise or integration as well:  I'm
	pretty much a clean-as-I-go cook to a large extent.
	Wrappers go direclty into the trash, nothin' but
	net.  I look for someone who can help wash up mid-day
	especially if we have too small of a kitchen.
	And I see the involvement in the scullery and kitchen
	much as Micaylah does.  This organization is partici-
	patory, not spectatory (is that a word?  if not, it
	is now) in nature, and some of the sense of "entitle-
	ment" we've been talking about stems from allowing
	that to go on for too long in too many quarters.
	Any opportunity for someone to come do something
	is a chance to get involved, makes people known to
	each other.

	I think part of the problem is ruling too sharp a
	division between "work" and "fun".  "Fun" seems to
	be seen more and more as pointless, frivolous, brain-
	less, zero-content; fun is more fun when it's ful-
	filling, when there's joy in doing something along-
	side comrades, when there's a sense of accomplishment.

	I've been complimented here on running a fun kitchen,
	and I do.  We still see that the food hits the tables
	on time.  At Midwinter, I invited an extremely popular
	court baron into the morning prep crew; his ribald
	wit, never veering into the vulgar, kept a largely
	female crew in stitches while mangling oranges and
	tearing up salad and cutting up bread for lunch.

	We had people skitter out early due to weather (snow,
	doncha know), but those that stayed helped *everyone*
	out with kitchen equpiment and with the mopping and
	trash hauling.  

	I think "priming the pump" with the noticeable 
	exemplar is a pretty valid technique almost anywhere.

Berengaria

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