SC - OOP: making up bread
Gaylin
iasmin at home.com
Sat Oct 28 06:03:02 PDT 2000
Most of my advice is in the organizing rather than the recipe choosing and
cooking.
Have a co-cook:
For me, having a co-cook has been essential. Beforehand, I bounce ideas off
her, divide up the advance work, get research assistance, get proof-reading
done, have an extra eye looking for bargains and generally feel she could
take over if need be. On-site, she is the one to nag me about a break. At
our last feast she elected herself cheif of sanitation police, keeping tabs
on people's hands (washed or not), hair (contained if long), the dishwater
(we had hot water problems, she made sure people stopped washing when out of
hot water), dishtowels (dry with clean towels not with damp towels) and
other such issues.
Recipes:
In advance, give copies of the whole recipe collection to those you KNOW
will be helping in the kitchen. They probably won't study it before hand,
but at least you've given them the chance. Copies also to the autocrat,
reservationist and other members of the sponsoring group. That many more
people will be able to answer questions about what's on the menu and what's
in the food. Give a couple copies to your hall steward so they might share
with any servers they have pre-commitments from.
For the kitchen: Print one recipe per page. In case your help left their
reading glasses at home, use the largest type size possible without making
the recipe longer than both sides of one page. Put each recipe in a clear
page protector so your help doesn't have to worry about where they lay it
down. Have a second page-protectored set in a binder for your use or in case
something in the other set gets damaged or lost.
Equipment:
Label, label, label! (Here's my method)
Buy two different colored brand new sharpie markers and a roll of masking
tape. Using one of the markers, as you pack, write your name on _every_
item from your own home that is going to the site. Label every part of
items like the food processor and slow cooker and label any boxes that
things are packed in. My girls tease because every spoon, knife, appliance,
handtool, the salt shaker, the honey bottle, a lot of storage containers,
platters, pans, you name it in our kitchen has a green "KLM", but I haven't
lost anything yet to SCA or PTA events.)
At the site, put the roll of tape and the _other_ marker near the door.
Direct everyone who is loaning equipment and tools to you to label same with
this other marker. (Job for kid old enogh to write: stop other tasks and do
this for people who must dump their stuff and go.) After clean up,
unlabeled stuff vs your stuff vs loaned stuff is easily sorted out.
You cannot have enough dishtowels. Go or send someone to the auto supply
store to get several bags of 100 percent cotton 'rags'. These are perfectly
adequate for drying dishes and counters, using as side towels, impromptu
aprons tucked into belts. They are cheap enough that if any go missing, you
won't care. But do establish a place for the clean up crew to dump them so
someone can take them home to wash them for next time. A plastic garbage
bag is not a good place to put them even though, yes, it did keep the
cardboard box from getting soggy.
No matter how many of these inexpensive towels you buy, the towel supply
will be too small. To get more use out of what you have with out seriously
compromising sanitation: Set up a clothes line if you have a space. At
various times when during the day when dishwashing is caught up, take all
the wet towels and dump them in hot soapy water. Wring them out and dump
them in hot bleachy water. Wring them out and hang to dry. When dry, use
them for purposes other than drying dishes, such as wiping up spills and
messes or for drying hands. Reserve clean, unused towels for dish drying.
(Toward the end, pots and pans and oven trays were dried with these used
towels. But my co-cook was gone by then so she couldn't get distressed.)
Serving dishes:
Plan for serving dishes when planning the feast. You may have to buy or
borrow bowls and platters and serving utensils and the sooner you know this
the better. Make a list (large type again) of what recipe is served in what
dishes with what utensil and what trimmings. See that your head server has
this list and that you bring a copy to site.
On-site: the night before or early the day of, you or your head server
ascertain that all the serving dishes are actually there, and are washed.
Put in a spot they won't be re-dirtied. Put the list near where plating will
be happening.
Feeding the cooks:
Do not forget breakfast for yourself and those who come to the kitchen
early. I've been lucky to have a friend that brings bagels and cream cheese
for me.
I was also lucky that a woman in our barony saw it as her duty to provide
lunch to the cooks. She showed up at most events with a pot of lentil stew,
and stack of disposable bowls and spoons.
Provide snacks worth working for. I always have at least 3 dozen generously
sized brownies, and some ginger or shortbread cookies. (The girls bake them
for me, I'd have at least another dozen if I did it myself, but it's worth
it.) These are given to short term help as a parting gift. Longer term help
serve themselves when they want. Keep a stash for the after feast
dishwashing supervisor to share out when that job is done.
Bonne
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