[Sca-cooks] pennsic menuplanning

[Marilyn Traber]

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Welcome, and as defacto hash-slinger extrordinaire [ok, hospitaler] for our
merry band of quiet, well behaved and dainty appetites at pennsic I would
like to welcome you to the fray!

We have low carbers, high carbers, diabetics, celiacs, finiky eaters, raging
appetites who will eat anything that doesn't move fast enough and enough
assorted allergies, likes and dislikes to make cooking a challenge. Our best
way to handle this group of raging egomaniacs is to learn to delegate!

Over the past few years we have developed a system that works pretty well.
land-grab day is traditionally my first meal of the season, and I don't
worry about periodness, just making enough food for numbers ranging from 35
to IIRC the largest batch we ever had in for the Harbinger's Bash was 64
people. I have a sort of traditional menu of antipasto, with bread and
assorted spreads, pasta [5 lbs regular, 1 lb celiac] and vegetarian red
sauce with various carniverous add ins, a shrimp alfredo [although one year
it was soupy enough we served it as bisque... oops!] and some sort of
sacrificial baked good like blackberry muffin cake as dessert. All we care
about is feeding people who have been working at getting the camps
organized. Then we have a designated morning person who makes coffee and
breakfast. It has been Scotti, but they need to move out of the camp for
health reasons [tiki-smoke complications] so we are working on a new morning
person.

We have hired a scullery-in-chief and a crew of sculleries because I hate to
do dishes and would rather pay somebody else to deal with them...and we have
the kitchen sink to go along with it!

We sort of freeform lunches into being leftovers and whatever I happen to
feel like throwing together impromptu, frequently a recipe that i have been
discussing with somebody as a sort of lab experiment [like the tagine from
the first year ended up as dinner ;-)]

Dinners we try to let people each pick a day to provide the main meal for -
I do a traditional duck dinner, followed the next night with a mesoamerican
duck enchilada type feast, we also have been known to have period chinese,
mongolian, persian, and menues from all sorts of period cook books.
Typically, everybody picks at least one night, and I tend to get subbed in
if there are no other willing volunteers to cook that night.

You will have to come down and visit us!
margali

the quote starts here:
 T=
he main reason for joining the list is because we've recently had our first=
 camp planning meeting for Pennsic.  We've decided to change our meal plan.
Now, each couple will be responsible for at least one meal.  I have never c=
ooked for 20, nor have I cooked over a fire.  In addition to these challeng=
es, our group has several dietary restrictions, including mine (gluten), al=
lergy to onions, and a few observant muslims, meaning no pork or alcohol.  =
I
would really like to stay period, as most of the other cooks are planning m=
eals like chilli or stir fry, ect.
Giovanna
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