SC - Compost and Kitchen Crew management
lilinah at earthlink.net
lilinah at earthlink.net
Sat Apr 15 22:57:07 PDT 2000
- -- ONE --
I'm thinking of making Compost The Medieval Dish for the feast i'm
doing in late Nov-early Dec, even though it isn't one of the
"traditional" dishes for that feast. The main dishes are pork, pork,
pork - in just about every course except dessert. And that's because
it's The Boar Hunt - a day of hunting boar (a couple heavy fighters
so designated) by other heavies and "hounds" (light fighters so
designated). The feast comes after a day of good clean fun (or not so
clean if it's raining).
Months ago when i first took this assignment (cue Mission: Impossible
music) i asked for recipes from the good folk on this list and will
be playing with them before i decide (my thanks again to those who
sent them).
Usually dishes are cooked on the spot, starting around 8 or 9 AM with
the pork roasts, as there's a pretty good kitchen there. The feast
starts around 5 PM: a course is served, folks eat, the dishes are
cleared and there is singing, or dancing, or juggling, or other
stuff, then another course, then more stuff, etc. Hall clears around
10 PM and the kitchen is theoretically clean by 11 PM.
But, as i said, i'm thinking of making Compost. i'd have to start
this some time ahead of the feast. What i'd like to know is, how far
ahead of the feast should i start this?
Also, must i have one of those big ceramic crocks or can i use a
couple big glass jars (i think mine are 2-gallon size) or what? The
feast is for between 50 to 100 people. There are i think four courses
with four dishes in each course.
- -- TWO --
I've worked two feasts and i finally attended one at which i didn't
work for the first time last weekend, but i don't yet know how to
"manage" the cooking crew. I intend to volunteer for a couple more
feasts this year to learn more, but i thought i'd pose this to the
list.
Since i've never managed a kitchen crew before, i'm not sure of the
"best" way. There's cooking going on from around 8 AM until shortly
before the dessert course, although most of the crew arrives between
10 and 11 AM. What happened last year was one or two people worked on
each dish - chopping, mixing, cooking. When the dish was done, they
moved on to another dish or took a "play" break.
Last year i spent about 5 hours washing when i noticed that the
serving trays needed to be "recycled" and no one else was washing.
Also, as people finished cooking their dishes they just put the dirty
stuff in the sink and moved on to the next dish.
I want to find a way to rotate the crew so that stuff actually gets
washed, but no one person spends the whole evening doing it. I'd
like, first, to ask (tell) folks to wash the items they used when
they're done using them, so that part of the stack up in the sink is
eliminated. There are three sinks - i'm guessing, one soap, one clear
first rinse, one clear final rinse...
How to other Kitchen Stewards do this? Do i just informally watch and
pick people out from time to time and cycle them over to the sink? A
posted list of names and jobs, then i watch to make sure people move
to their next job? Try to get a volunteer washing crew in addition to
the cooking crew?
Thanks for any hints,
Anahita al-shazhiyya bint-al-karim al-Fassi
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