[Sca-cooks] Working for Adamantius....

[Stefan li Rous]

Adamantius answered me with:
> Mark.S Harris wrote:
> > Well, at many feasts I would have been rather upset if I didn't
> > get any at my table. In this case,the mussels didn't make it to our
> > table at all. However, I was able to get some when I went to the
> > kitchen after the feast.
>
> As we discussed, near the end of the course people who had filled up on
> the first course simply told their servers they couldn't eat another
> bite if their lives depended on it, and most of the servers were sent on
> their merry way.

Certainly likely. I don't remember such comments coming from our table,
though. Feast serving was a bit chaotic with multiple appeals for
folks to volunteer to help serve, so it is quite possible that such
checks by the servers to see if their tables wanted more simply
overlooked our table.

> I understand an announcement was made to the effect
> that the mussels were available, and anyone who wanted them could come
> to the servers' area and get them.

I did forget to mention this. When we saw some of the mussels get
delivered to other tables I did go up to the server area and
requested, and got, some mussels. When I got more in the kitchen,
this was actually my second time to get some.

I still think we missed some dishes. But is also quite possible
that I'm simply forgetting some of them in the multitude of dishes.
I probably couldn't have eaten much more anyway.

> > The mussels were wonderful. I only wish I had been able to eat
> > more of them. By then I was pretty stuffed. It was a real shame to
> > see so many of the mussels end up in the trash, but it was my
> > understanding that they would not keep long, and as I was visiting
> > the area, I had no way to try to keep them until I was less stuffed.
>
> I actually brought rather a lot of them back to Puck's house, intending
> to eat them cold (hence my earlier conversation with the Baroness
> Bridge).

My statement above implies I knew something about whether mussels
would keep or not. That is not true. I was going on what someone
in the kitchen was saying. By that time, there were no experienced
cooks in the kitchen to help decide or tell folks which foods would
be safe to keep and which wouldn't be.

Had this been a local situation I would have gladly have bagged up
some of the sauces, chicken and pork pie that was left over. As I
didn't know about the safety of the mussels, maybe not those. :-(
All of this would have been wonderful later on.

> > And I want to be sitting at a stool,
> > as my back was complaining after stooping over the table so long.
> > I finally had to quit for awhile and let someone else take over for
> > awhile. :-(
>
> There's a certain angle many cooks tend to lean forward at, which is
> very hard on the back. Standign straight up I can do, and bending down I
> can do, but leaning forward at about ten degrees from vertical, say,
> when cutting onions, I have a problem with... certainly under the
> circumstances, taking a break was a good idea.

Is there a particular reason not to sit in the kitchen? I can see
why you wouldn't want to while at the stove. I tell folks not to
cast pewter while sitting for instance. If that pewter spills or
the pot gets knocked over, it is much better to be able to quickly
move out of the way, rather than having it flow into your lap. But
a fair amount of time in the kitchen seems to be done in a single
spot prepping the food. Is it the kitchen congestion? This kitchen
was fairly well equiped but it was rather small with some rather
tight areas.

I might also have expected that doing this leaning over the table
bit would build up the necessary muscles after a while. But if
Adamantius is saying he has trouble with this, then I guess that
doesn't happen. I suspect I was probably leaning over closer to
twenty degrees from vertical, perhaps due to my eyesight
restrictions.

--
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas          stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****