Weekend (was Re: [Sca-cooks] Sausages)

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Also sprach Randy Goldberg MD:
>  > I can't report on the feast, alas, because we were on the waiting list
>>  and didn't get in.  I spent part of the morning helping with dayboard
>>  prep, and most of the afternoon selling goodies to benefit our
>>  incipient canton.
>
>My sweetie was there, and reports that, sadly, the feast was, to use his
>word, "awful". (Apologies if any of the cooks are on this list.) It was
>2 hours late, everything was cold, and many things tasted bad, or didn't
>taste at all. Platters of stuff went back to the kitchen uneaten.
>
>Avraham

I'm very sorry to hear this. Everything smelled wonderful as I
wandered past the kitchen (I didn't get in there myself, as I was
involved in all kinds of Evil Machinations connected with my office;
these at least came to a successful conclusion.)

I understand that the head cook is a chef and culinary instructor at
one of the New York schools, very talented if somewhat inexperienced
at doing the historical cooking thing, but also getting better at
that. It may also be that he had scheduling trouble because, to be
frank, pros and SCAdians (at least those who aren't pros, which is
most of us) work at different speeds, and you can't do a lot of the
things you can do in a professional setting to motivate a SCAdian,
like screaming at them and firing them, and such. I'm not blaming the
SCA as a group, but it may be that the gentleman had trouble with
unrealistic expectations of cooks he didn't know well.

I had some similar problems at EK 12th Night. At times I just felt
like we were slogging through hip-deep mud, and I knew I couldn't do
it all myself, especially at less than 100% health levels, so I had
to make the best of it and get used to adjusting to others, rather
than expecting them to adjust to me.

Overall, though, the work got done, but I had this ongoing sensation
that I was pulling teeth. Sometimes this just happens. Last weekend
(at Vlad the Impaler's Market Day) there was none of that sense of
slow-motion, even though nobody had to work that hard.

I mention this only as a possibility. I'd be surprised if there
weren't some logical explanation, as the gentleman has a very good
local reputation.

Adamantius