SC - Appropriate notice?

[Andrea Chamberlin]

Ohh, nice question!

Courtesy, of course, requires as much notice as possible.  I'm going to
assume that the lack of notice lay in either a) the steward didn't
know*about the feast/dayboard until the last minute and/or b) the head cook
broke his/her ankle.

(Several years ago, the head cook for an annual tourney and feast event got
notice five weeks before the feast.  The theme of the feast had already been
published, and 10 of the 40 tickets that had been distributed were comps.
Five weeks before the feast, we had no site, no menu, no food bought, and
(if I recall correctly) we suddenly lost our steward and head cook.  (I
don't recall why, any longer.)  Fortunately the back-up head cook had a
_lot_ of experience, including having prepared that feast the three years
proceeding.)

My answer is going to reflect only what I perceive as the absolute minimum
needed for_ me_ to accomplish the task.  I'm not a very experienced feast
cook (I have been head cook at only two feasts, and both of those were in
Drachenwald five years ago), and right now I work outside the home.  The
other consideration I'm going to factor in is how much notice you need to
effectively comparison shop, and to give notice to get better deals.

A lot depends on where you are and what the local expectations are.

If you're in Drachenwald and 'breakfast' can mean lots of bread and cheese
(the default pretty much everywhere I went), I would say between 3 to 10
days, depending on what kind of advance notice you needed to give the bakery
and the cheese shop.  You could pull this much off overnight, though, if the
budget permitted going to the shop with no advance notice for better prices.

If you're doing a more substantial breakfast, or a period breakfast meal, I
haven't the faintest notion, not having been to one.

Dayboard:
How many people are contributing to the dayboard?  Is it just you, or you
and the people you round up?  What are you serving?  If you're cooking
mostly quiches,  you probably won't be able to do that too much in advance
anyway.  Has something been promised on the dayboard, or are you on your own
for a menu?  (This would slow me up a bit; I don't have a bunch of stock
recipes that I know work and could just make without any qualms.)

I would guess 1 to 2 weeks (again, this is what it would take _me_; someone
more experienced might need less time).

For a feast, I would want at least a month, but could probably manage with a
bare minimum of two weeks.  A lot would depend on how much I had to do
beforehand, and what the kitchen specs were.  If I had to do everything that
day (assuming I was buying the bread), and I had a good kitchen and reliable
grocery options, I could _probably_ do it with just two weeks to put
together a menu and buy the ingredients -- but the good kitchen is
essential.

Talitha

- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Jenne Heise" <jenne at mail.browser.net>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2001 8:03 AM
Subject: SC - Appropriate notice?


> What do you all think of as appropriate notice (in other words, the
> autocrat comes to you and says, "I need you to do this meal in x weeks")
> for a) feasts; b) dayboards (does it matter whether it is winter or
> summer); c) breakfasts?