[Sca-cooks] My first feast (LONG)

[phoenissa at netscape.net]

Well, now that I've had a full week to recover, I finally have the time and patience to report to this list on the successes and failures of my first feast.  For the full menu, and information about the event in general, please see the College of St Katherine website here: www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~sca

So, my first big mistake was not sleeping for, like, a week leading up to
the event.  The last few weeks have been very busy at school, so I'd
been pulling some late nights.  The night before the event I was up till
3:30 AM typing up the handout with recipes and stuff, and up again at 7:30
to finish baking and pack up everything to take to the site.  The recipe packet is decidedly incomplete - it's rpetty obvious what time I was writing it ;-/  Hopefully I'll finish it up someday and get
it posted on our website.

I had planned on spending $240 on food.  I ended up going about $100 over
budget.  I still need to go over all the receipts and stuff and figure out
exactly why that is.  I didn't use very many expensive ingredients; costly
items like dates and nuts I bought in fairly small amounts.  I think one stupid thing was planning three dishes with yogurt as a main ingredient.  I honestly did not realize that stuff costs $3 a quart...and I needed over 3 gallons.  You do the math.  <sigh>

I expected I'd have way too much food.  I realized halfway through the
event that I had too many dishes, but not enough of most of them.  Some of
this was the result of utter thoughtlessness.  For example: how much
spinach would you need for 60 servings?  I bought an entire case of spinach
- something like 40 heads of greens in there.  My wonderful, angelic
kitchen crew spent the better part of the morning washing and cleaning
them, and when they were cooked, they filled only ONE bowl.  Nearly as bad
were the fava beans: we spent 6 hours on Saturday shelling 28 pounds of
beans, and there was only enough to fill two platters.  We barely had ANY
leftovers.  There was some couscous with vegetables, and a couple
ladle-fuls of lamb stew, but no chicken, no fish, not even any lentils or
eggplant, and no dessert.  However, the cheese pies - which came at the
very end of the meal - were not so popular.  Or maybe people were just not
so hungry.  At any rate, I had to take half a dozen of the accursed
things home with me :-(

I had major timing problems.  The first course was less than an hour behind schedule - could've been worse.  It was the fault of the oven, which refuse to heat up :-(  Thinking myself a medieval Martha Stewart, I'd expected to have the leisure time to carve a half-dozen little radish roses as garnish for the lentils...yeah, right ;-p  Also wanted lemons for the fish, but forgot to bring them.  And I forgot about the fava beans, so they had to go out with the second course.

My biggest mistake was not starting the second course till the first was
out of the kitchen.  This was REALLY dumb, as the meat stew needed a while
to cook.  I was also reminded of how much I HATE cooking on electric ranges
- those things are evil!  Take forever to heat up, and these weren't the
kind that turn red when they're hot, so you couldn't tell which ones were
on.  So, we THOUGHT the stove was on under the meat stew, and were
wondering why it wasn't hot, until like half an hour later we realized that
someone (probably me, I forget) had turned off the wrong burner when taking
the spinach off the stove, and the lamb was still mostly raw.  Once it
cooked it was fabulous, but that was a stressful moment.  Oh yeah, and the
couscous was overdone - a bit mushy.  Needed salt.  But people just ate it
slathered in stew, so I guess it didn't matter much.  Unsurprisingly, the
meat stew was way more popular than the veggies, but I thought both were
good.  But the course was served nearly 2 hours behind schedule :-(  The
servers kept coming back, asking if we had bread, or anything that was
ready to go out yet...I whipped up the cucumber-yogurt stuff and sent it
out early, and they came back in three minutes with the plates empty.  Luckily there was enough to make another batch.  I couldn't send out much bread because I hadn't bought quite enough, and wanted to save some for the last course.  Idiot that I am, I forgot to send it out later in the evening, and much to my mortification, during clean-up discovered
several loaves of which I had deprived my guests :-(  It was excellent
bread, and I feel intensely stupid for being so stingy with it.

I forgot to buy caraway, so it didn't go in any of the dishes it was
supposed to.  I know I forgot to spice the spinach at all (except for
garlic, salt, pepper) and I suspect that whoever made the second batch of
cucumbers in yogurt forgot to put garlic or salt in it.  I also forgot to
salt the fish.  However, there was salt on the tables for whoever wanted it, so at least that problem could be easily remedied.

The chicken (thumiyya) came out well, though I think I was a bit hasty - we were in such a rush to serve (it was getting near the time when several guests, including Their Highnesses of the Mists, were planning to leave), that I might've pulled it out of the oven a bit soon.  I checked several pieces and they were well done, but the autocrat showed me that her piece was undercooked.  Now, I'm the type that usually cooks chicken until it's
falling off the bone, so I was plenty embarrassed about that - and a bit
panicked (what if people got sick, etc).  I only hope her piece was the
rogue one... oh, and I didn't put the dough crust on for baking 'cause I
forgot the flour & didn't have time to mix the dough anyway, and there was
no cover for the baking pan or even aluminum foil to cover it, so it came
out different than when I tried it at home.  Definitely a bit on the dry
side - however, I really couldn't tell how the flavor changed, 'cause I
didn't taste any. :-(  But it smelled fantastic, and I am very grateful to
the autocrat (as if she wasn't already busy enough) for sweeping into the kitchen and preparing the dish for me.  The eggplant was good, though the stove was (again) being horrid and slow so we made only half of what was peeled & sliced because it took too long to cook.

The dessert was ok.  The lauzinaj were slightly undercooked - my oven's
fault.  I did them at home, and they were burning on the sides and didn't
even brown in the center.  But they tasted fine - and I still have some
marzipan left over, so I may make another batch for myself, just for fun
:-)  The semolina stuff was ok - made the puddings at home, but because the
eggplant was taking so long, I couldn't fry the slices till the last
minute; I cut them thick, and couldn't cook them for too long, so they
didn't work as well as they had at home.  And again, I overestimated the
amount...still had three puddings left unopened at the end of the day.

All in all, I think it went pretty much ok.  I got decent reports from the
feast hall; people seemed to be enjoying the food reasonably well.  I felt
awful that things were so off schedule, but everyone told me, "Don't worry,
that happens at EVERY feast."  Having only been to two, I couldn't have
known :-)  But I was WAY over-ambitious with this.  My menu was far too
intricate, far too expansive, and far too expensive (in money AND in time -
never, ever again will spinach or fava beans go on a menu in such
quantities!!).  I could have done much better with fewer dishes, and more
food in each of those.  But it was my first time, so I wanted to make a
splash.  Call me young and foolish <g>, but I have since learned my lesson.

But I am NOT doing this again - it felt impossible to balance the planning of something so elaborate with being a full-time undergraduate.  I will not run another feast until I am done with college (or even grad school, if I have any sense!), have my own car, my own finances, and a big house with a bigger kitchen :-)  However, I have satisfied my curiosity for the time being, and I am pleased to say that my my first feast was not a total failure.

I am extremely grateful to all the members of this list for giving me helpful advice, most particularly Anahita, Cariadoc, and Giles.  In addition, I am greatly indebted to the former two for helping me out in person as well as by correspondence, and providing everything from shopping tips to entertainment for the kitchen staff :-)  I honestly do not believe I could have pulled this off without help from so many wonderful, kind, and knowledgeable people!  Thanks, everyone!

Vittoria
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