[Sca-cooks] Being a Cook

[Mem Morman]

Part of being a cook is dealing with autocrats.  Here are some of the
basic points on which I refuse to compromise, and which I pass on
adamantly (no pun intended) to those I help to train.

The budget must be set per head eating the feast.
This means that I will not accept being told I have $200 to "do" the
feast and that has to cover however many people I am told on Saturday
afternoon are actually eating.  I need to know that I have $2 or $4.25
or $20 PER HEAD and that amount needs to be paid for each person for
whom a place is set - be it three year old or king and queen.  One of
the worst things, IMHO, that autocrats try to do is to foist high table
into the cook's numbers without agreeing to pay for them.  As a cook, I
don't care WHO pays for high table (the group, the crown, uncle
charlie's expense account) but if they are going to be served food then
they are heads in my budget.

I need a firm number of feasters by Friday noon for a Saturday feast.
I realized that some people do this differently - but I do not.  I shop
Friday evening for the majority of my groceries and prepare the food on
site.  Before I shop, and before I make my final list of pots, pans, and
serving gear; I need a final number of how many tables of eight I will
be serving.

We need to agree, at least generally, on when the feast will be served.
I can sometimes put a feast forward or back an hour - but I need to know
if it's going to be served about 4pm or about 7pm and I need regular
updates on this throughout the day.  If feast time changes by more than
an hour then all bets are off.  The autocrat, the cook, and the reigning
nobility need to talk about and agree to when the meal will be served.

elaina