SC - feast disasters and recovery

[Stefan li Rous]

Lorix commented:
> Oh, I just thought of _another_ measure of success for a feast from the feast
> steward side:  that you have been able to successfully rectify any mistakes that
> may have occurred.
> 
> <snip of how a possible feast disaster was worked out of without panic
> but with resourcefulness.>
> 
> Now, the above had the potential to be an expensive disaster & I had very
> limited to time to fix it & so did the best with what I had.  When I got to the
> site, I had the expected amused enquiries about the 'raw' venison.  There was a
> variety of other dishes prepared so no-one was _forced_ to eat the smoked
> venison, but, after I explained what it was a number of the feasters (some
> extremely tentatively) tried the meat & pronounced it OK to delish.

To me, this ability is one of the things that sets apart a great
headcook 
from just a good headcook. I've worked with headcooks that panicked at every
little thing and because of this ran a very chaotic kitchen and everyone
was worn out by the time things were over.

On the otherhand, there is the example of the feastocrat for the one
large event I've autocrated. 350 people at the event, 325 eating feast.
Late in the afternoon, it was discovered that the freezer/refrigerator
(I can't remember which) was not working. That was needed for the dessert
that had been planned. The headcook did not panic. He simply sent
someone out to buy a bunch of peaches and created another dessert
using the ingredients meant for the original dessert and the other
stuff he had on hand. That event was just prior to TFIC, so I don't
remember how period the dishes were.

I do not consider myself good enough or experienced enough to handle
such emergencies. For myself and for others that might possibly find
themselves in such situations, I have created a file from the various
feast disasters and their resolutions that have been reported on this
list. This file is fst-disasters-msg in the FEASTS section. As a
minimum I hope this will give folks some encouragement that others
have faced and overcome things that make their possible problems shrink 
in comparison.
- -- 
Lord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas           stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****