[Sca-cooks] 100 minutes dayboard/feast report from behind the scenes and your opinions solicited(long)

[Marilyn Hillvic]

My dearest group,
  Well, it's over. Saturday was the 100 Minutes War
event and I'm trying to find the words which can fit
the totality of my feelings about the event. So, here
goes:
  Jadwiga, I'm very sorry I missed you. I know you
were thand washing handwashing, but I ran my buns and
feet off between what needed to happen inside the
kitchen and outside the kitchen, so we must meet
someday soon. Philip, you already have my apology (and
recipe).
   Mundane and insane year-end projectchallengest
challanges did not helcalendarthe calandar pages kept
flying by before the event. In the final days before
the event, I convinced the head cook that turkey is
period, thanks to the list posting of the "29 ways to
prepare turkey, that new Spanish dish from 1581". This
allowed us to purchase and slice turkey and beef for
the dayboard (it was VERY well received).
   The final countdown days were a blur of activity
with pre-cooking chicken, apple compote, hard-boiled
eggs, beef soubiscuitsps, buscuits, and many other
items. I never want to see another chicken joint
again. In retrospect, I think we did not pre-prep
enough items.
   The chopping party on Thursday night before the
event was ahollerand a hollar. The veggies purchased
were very inexpensive, but very overgrown. The carrots
were 15 inches long and thicker than my wrist. And
quite oddly shaped (I&#3Siamesever seen siamese
vegetables before). We ended up having a 'most phallic
vegetable' contest. Since we meet in a church
basement, I hope someone remembered to throw out the
winner.
   It poured the night before, but Saturday dawned
clear and cold and blustery. I got up at 4 AM to do
some final prep work on the compote and toss the few
last chicken parts in the oven. My husband and
daughters (ages 10 and 11) were too tired to help, so
I loaded about 200 pounds of food in my mini-van by
myself and headed to the site. 4 cheery and strong
volunteers helped unload the car and I began to set up
and prepare the last items. That included peeling and
cutting cucumbers, slicing and rolling the cold cuts,
making lemonade and water in carboys, and heating and
diluting soup, figuring out how to get the frozen
chicken to heat up (turned out that the convection
ovens were great) and sliced mounds of bread. All of
this should have been done the day before in
retrospect.
   While I was 40 feet away from the stove, the head
cook failed to notice that 2 pots of pea soup had
burned beyond salvation because he became pre-occupied
with making stuffing for the lamb. He suggested we
serve it anyway, burnt. I said no and dumped it down
the drain. Thank goodness no vegetarians asked for
soup, or at least they did not not ask me. I learned a
lesson about assuming that someone standing next to a
pot of cooking food will take care of it.
   We finally got the food out about 30 minutes
latestampededungry gentles stampeeded the food. Crys
of delight and glee from the people taking the food
made me feel better about its presentation. Next year
I bring tablecloths, signs, and serving utensils,
which I scrounged as I could. Our shire's policy about
plates is 'your problem'. I hope next year we can
offer more than paper towels to those without plates.
We did have cups for soup and water, however. The
dayboard plan called for a fighter dayboard outside
for the 200 heavy fighters and an indoor dayboard for
the remaining people (I didn't hear the troll count
yet: it was close to 700 though). I was appalled that
the fighter dayboard was soccerumped on the last
bleacher of the soccar field,pavilion9;ll try to see
that tables  and a pavillion go up next year.
   Feast prep went on during the day: no meat had been
premightyo the head cook and his father had a mightly
job to clean, dress, stuff, and prepare about 200
pounds of meat. It left a terrible mess in the armored
Other things went well (assembling armoured turnips,
glazed carrots, barley, and green beans) but dealing
with the vast quantities of water on a stove which was
just cast iron plates and no open flames caused
backups of schedules to occur.
   By 6 PM the bread, butter, and cock-a-leekie soup
went out to some tables. There were communications
faux-pas because there was no direct kitchen to hall
communication. And then we had to wait for the royals
to be seated.Once eating commenced, it was hard to
judge when platters would go out next. Food sat out
getting cold while entertainment went on. Sometimes we
fought trying to get the food out of the pot
(cauldroscaldinguid used to boil the chicken are a
scaulding hazard. Next time we should put portions
into warming ovens and serve continuously during
entertainment so food will not be too cold or too slow
as each table eats at its own pace.
   We put out platters of Rosemary chicken with black
grape sauce, green beanmushroomlmonds,Ale-basted
stuffed lamb with mushroon-flavored barley, glazed
carrots, armored turnips, and a dessert platter of
cake with apple compote, melon slices, grapes, and
shortbreads, all without serving implements (my
husband and I had wanted to purchase them, but nobody
else was interested in this: again, for next year I'll
rattle the coffers and ladlesr some money to get 27
sets of spoonladlesladels for 3 courses, oh, heck make
it 27 ladels and 150 spoons so we'll have enough to go
around. 3 tables never came to get their dessert
platters, which the cook had spent a lot of money on
bakery sheet cakes for. Next time: let's bake our own
cakes and put out a dessert sideboard. With some
hypocras and mulled cider too.

So, dear list, please give me your impressions of the
feast. I did not see any of it, nor did I taste much
because of an oversight by my group. They did not
leave room for me at our table, so I sat in the ready
room next to the kitchen, nibbling on whatever fell my
way, not being able to see or hear anything. Perhaps
next year someone will be kind enough to save a seat
so I could grab a few bites and try to experience
what's going on outside. And your opinions of what you
liked, what you didn't like and what you want in
general would be greatly appreciated. And don't worry
about feelings: I want to take lessons from this (you
know, the burned and learned stuff).

So: cooks! Lay on!

            --Marion

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