SC - Herbs for spit-roasting meat?

[harper@idt.net]

>Give your feastocrat a budget.

Or if you do not have experience with budgeting feasts, use
a bidding system or work directly with your feast steward
to analyze their budget prior to any major purchases or
planning. I've done this both ways from both positions and
found that it works rather well either way. I personally
think budgets should be negotiable. Is the feast set to be the
money maker of an event? Is it just meant to be the way to
attract more people to an event? Are you aiming to keep
with a particular theme? All these and more will affect the
money outlay.

>  (I worked on a dayboard where the other person involved, one ofthe
>autocrat's buddies, tried to claim gas and tolls!)

You say that like it's a bad thing, Jadwiga. :)

I have legitimately claimed gas and tolls for a feast. As long
as your staff is in agreement that this is a valid expense, I
see no problem with it. I worked this cost into my last budget
because I knew one of my major purchases, my meat, would
involve me driving out of my state to retrieve it. And when
I worked with a friend on some of the initial table items, it
involved me going out of the *country* (suffering through
customs; bring your passport, gah) to work on the dish. I
think gas and tolls are perfectly valid expenses in the right
situation.

>If there is an emergency, people will often be too busy
>dealing with it to call you, even if calling you might mean you could
>round up more help for them.

I think in this same vein, one of the most useful things I do
as a feast steward is drive around the neighborhood and track
the distance to any stores I might need in an emergency. This
served me well at the spring coronation I just cooked. I took a
break from the kitchen because I'd been encouraging my staff
to do so throughout the day and not heeding my own advice. I
had only planned to make a trip down the hall, into the merchant
area and back. A 10 minute trip at most. I returned in 10
minutes to a frantic crew and a completely ruined below-the-salt
stew. Had I not driven the neighborhood several times before the
feast day, I would not have been able to drag an able-bodied
man with me to the local store to get a completely new set of
stew ingredients 45 minutes before the feast was set to start.

Iasmin

Iasmin de Cordoba, gwalli at ptc.com or iasmin at home.com