SC - Dragonsspine Cooks Guild

[Mary Morman]

Beatrice asked about local cooks guilds and Olwen gave an excellent
account of the Bright Hills guild.

The Dragonsspine Cooks Guild has been meeting once a month, most months,
for more than ten years.  We've had a number of meeting formats.  One
year we worked through Elinor Fettiplace (which is arranged seasonally)
and different folks volunteered to bring or prepare different of
Elinor's receits each month.  This worked well in that we got a good
feeling for the Elizabethan table and garnered several excellent recipes
which we then used in feasts.

Another activity is to plan upcoming feasts.  We usually have one
planning session, where people suggest different dishes, we see what
would work well together, and what our kitchen will accomodate, and
actually come up with a feast menu.  Then we'll have a second meeting
where we prepare the different dishes and closely document our times,
amounts, and ingredients.  We'll often prepare a dish in two or three
slightly different ways and compare the results.

A couple years ago we did a series of "seige" meetings where folks would
arrive to find a certain set of ingredients placed out on the counter
and then would have to look through the available source books and find,
document, and create a dish using what was there.  First come first
served, and the latecomers get the spinach.

Our group has gotten quite good as working -together- to plan and
prepare feasts, so that even though one person or another may be the
head cook, the feasts are a group effort with lots of experience and
support going into the mix.

Elaina