SC - feast cleanup for the head cook

[Gaylin Walli]

Micaylah and others expressed their dismay about my cleaning up:

>Absolutely outrageous. Jasmine, where was your clean up crew? Sometimes you
>have to gently nudge the clean up situation but as head cook you should
>never never
>never never have to clean up after you have done a feast.

Well, I didn't do *ALL* the cleanup. One dear fighter and another
canton member volunteered to do dishes. And a ton of people helped
clean off the feast tables. Thank god we didn't have to mop any of
the floors. There's a good reason for paying for the janitor on site
during the event. :)

>You must be far younger than I to have had the energy to do so and I
>applaud you for doing so but at the same time think perhaps (gentle
>criticism here) you should hone those delegating skills a little bit.

I glady accept your criticism, kind Lady, and I admit you are right.

I did have what I thought were two good reasons for helping with the
cleanup. First, the people working on cleanup had never done so before.
They were new to the feast cleanup situation, I'm reasonably certain,
and with no insult to them, I wanted to be sure that kitchen was
cleaner than when I encountered it. At one point there was a small
accident involving a possessed stand mixer that sprayed one of my
kitchen crew from head to toe with unbaked custard. The people on
the cleanup crew hadn't know the accident occurred and wouldn't
have known to move the mixer away from the wall and wash down
the custard that had gotten behind the counters and the sink.
     Second, there was a feast done for 12th Night at the same site.
And the problems at that event were numerous, though no fault of
the head cook. The major problems centered around the 18+ inches
of snow that fell within a 12 hour period during the event. Cleanup
was rushed and *that* kitchen crew and cook had to do their own
cleanup after working from the wee hours of the morn because all
the cleanup crew people left the event to keep from getting stranded
during the blizzard.
     Understandably, cleanup for that other feast was very hurried,
not through neglect, but sheer exhaustion. My concern, having
spoken with the head cook who is a dear friend of mine, was that
the high school officials who were somewhat concerned with the
state of the kitchen after the 12 night event would be especially
vigilant after my feast. I personally felt I had a responsibility to
ensure that our group and other SCA groups could still use the
kitchen and the site in general. Had the kitchen been in disarray a
second time running, I feared all local SCA groups would lose a
fantastic and inexpensive site.

>Remember this is supposed to be fun. It would be nice if you were
>around and willing to do another feast as it sounds like you did a bang
>up job.

And I am still up for doing another one. I truly do have the bug. I
wish there was a cook's guild in our area. I don't believe there is
one.

Jasmine

Jasmine de Cordoba, gwalli at infoengine.com or jasmine at infoengine.com


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